Tech
China’s Didi Global falls to first quarter loss on drop in Xpeng income
China’s Didi Global falls to first quarter loss on drop in Xpeng income
China’s largest ride-hailing company Didi Global fell to a first-quarter net loss after two consecutive quarters of profit, the company said on Wednesday.
Didi reported a net loss attributable to shareholders of 1.4 billion yuan ($193.13 million) for the three months to the end of March, largely attributing that to a fall in investment income from its stake in Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng.
It sold its electric car development business to Xpeng in August in a deal worth $744 million in exchange for a roughly 3.25% stake in the vehicle maker.
Excluding the losses attributed to investment income and other expenses, Didi’s adjusted net income for the quarter was 1.4 billion yuan.
Revenue for the three months increased by 14.9% to 49.1 billion yuan from a year earlier.
Didi has begun recovering after drawing the attention of China’s cyberspace regulator in 2021 over its pursuit of a U.S. initial public offering without approval, prompting an inquiry that prohibited it from adding users and saw many of its apps removed from major app stores.
The regulator then handed Didi a $1.2 billion fine in July 2022 over data security violation, before granting the company permission to relaunch its apps early last year.
Co-founder Jean Liu stepped down this month from her roles as president and board director, Reuters reported.
Liu, who over the past decade was heavily involved in financial decisions, has become a “permanent partner” and maintains her current duties, including serving as chief people officer.
Travel demand has shown signs of recovery though economic growth is sluggish amid an ongoing property crisis and weak domestic consumer demand.
Overall ride-hailing orders reached 891 million trips in March, data from the Ministry of Transport showed, an increase of more than 20% from the same month a year earlier.
Didi generates most of its revenue at home but also has a significant presence in Brazil and Mexico where it owns major ride-hailing platforms.
First-quarter revenue from international operations rose 43.9% to 2.4 billion yuan from a year earlier.
OpenAI and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank (9984.T) will each commit $19 billion to fund Stargate, a joint venture to develop data centers for artificial intelligence in the U.S., the Information reported on Wednesday.
The ChatGPT maker will hold a 40% interest in Stargate, and would act as an extension of OpenAI, the report said, citing OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaking to colleagues. His comments imply SoftBank would also have a 40% interest, the report added.
OpenAI and SoftBank did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that OpenAI, SoftBank Group and Oracle (ORCL.N) will unveil Stargate and invest $500 billion over the next four years to help the United States stay ahead of China and other rivals in the global AI race.
Stargate will initially deploy $100 billion and the rest of the funding is expected over the next four years. The project is being led by SoftBank and OpenAI.
Taiwan’s HTC (2498.TW) said on Thursday it will sell part of its unit for extended reality (XR) headsets and glasses to Google (GOOGL.O) for $250 million and transfer some of its employees to the U.S. company.
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of this year, HTC said.
The two companies will also explore further collaboration opportunities, HTC added.
Google said in a separate statement that the deal will accelerate the development of the Android XR platform and strengthen the ecosystem for headsets and glasses.
Lu Chia-te, HTC vice president and general counsel, told reporters the company had granted its intellectual property rights to Google as a non-exclusive license.
“Therefore, this is not a buyout nor an exclusive licence. In the future, HTC will still retain the ability to use, utilise, and even further develop it without any restrictions,” he said.
Microsoft’s (MSFT.O) LinkedIn has been sued by Premium customers who said the business-focused social media platform disclosed their private messages to third parties without permission to train generative artificial intelligence models.
According to a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night on behalf of millions of LinkedIn Premium customers, LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting last August that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data.
Customers said LinkedIn then discreetly updated its privacy policy on Sept. 18 to say data could be used to train AI models, and in a “frequently asked questions” hyperlink said opting out “does not affect training that has already taken place.”
This attempt to “cover its tracks” suggests LinkedIn was fully aware it violated customers’ privacy and its promise to use personal data only to support and improve its platform, in order to minimize public scrutiny and legal fallout, the complaint said.
The lawsuit was filed in the San Jose, California, federal court on behalf of LinkedIn Premium customers who sent or received InMail messages, and whose private information was disclosed to third parties for AI training before Sept. 18.
It seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract and violations of California’s unfair competition law, and $1,000 per person for violations of the federal Stored Communications Act.
A lawyer for Prince Harry on Wednesday said the Duke of Sussex had reached a settlement with Rupert Murdoch’s news conglomerate.
LinkedIn said in a statement: “These are false claims with no merit.”
A lawyer for the plaintiffs had no immediate additional comment.
The lawsuit was filed several hours after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a joint venture among Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Oracle (ORCL.N) and SoftBank (9984.T), with a potential $500 billion of investment, to build AI infrastructure in the United States.
OpenAI, SoftBank each commit 19bn dollars to Stargate AI data center
Taiwan’s HTC to sell part of XR unit to Google for 250mn dollars
Microsoft’s LinkedIn sued for disclosing customer information to train AI models
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