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No joke, Apple doesn’t seem to be doing well in China - the biggest consumer market in the world.

While it’s still the biggest company in the world by market capitalisation, it seems like it’s losing ground.

This week, I am exploring the Chinese smartphone market and how it is eerily similar to the Chinese electric vehicle industry.

And did you know? There could be a shortcut in predicting whether a company’s share price might be increasing in the future. Find out in the tool of the week section!

Moving on, here are the news that shocked the world…

iPhone losing?: Counterpoint has just pointed out that Apple’s iPhone market share has dipped to 18% in 2024 as Chinese players get more competitive [Read More]

GSK x IDRx: GSK wants to buy IDRx for US$1.2 billion for its drug to treat a rare gastrointestinal cancer [Read More]

J&J x Intra-cellular: Johnson & Johnson is considering buying Intra-cellular Therapeutics for US$10 billion for its treatments on the central nervous system [Read More]

LA wildfire: The Los Angeles wildfires are expected to cost US$30 billion in damages for the U.S. insurance industry [Read More]

JPMorgan Chase: Record profits. That’s the verdict for JPMorgan Chase in 4Q 2024, as profits rose by 50% to US$14 billion. [Read More]

Goldman Sachs: Goldman Sachs profits in 4Q 2024 also more than doubled to US$4.1 billion boosted by its investment banking division. [Read More]

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Here are the news covering the Asia market…

TikTok US to X?: Chinese officials are considering whether to sell TikTok US under ByteDance to Elon Musk’s X if the ban on TikTok in the U.S. goes through. [Read More]

Xiaohongshu: Xiaohongsu, TikTok’s rival is now valued at US$20 billion as some of its backers are considering selling some stake in the company. [Read More]

PropertyGuru: PropertyGuru CEO, Hari Krishnan is stepping down from his role to make way for Lewis Ng [Read More]

NTT: NTT Group could be listing a data centre REIT in Singapore, as it appoints Bank of America and UBS to work on it. [Read More]

Super Bank Indonesia: Super news. Super Bank Indonesia, backed by Grab, SingTel, and Kakaobank wants to list in the Jakarta market to raise US$300 million. [Read More]

YCH x Sime Darby: YCH Group is collaborating with Malaysia-based Sime Darby to build and develop logistics hubs in Malaysia, Vietnam and other ASEAN markets. [Read More]

GIC: Chief Investment Officer, Jeffrey Jaensubhakij is stepping down from his role in GIC after being at GIC for almost three decades. [Read More]

See below for our handpicked analyst reports:

Apple and Samsung are gradually losing their position in the global smartphone market.

In their place, cheaper Chinese smartphone players such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Vivo are increasingly out-competing them in China.

We highlighted in our newsreel last week that foreign-branded smartphones in China dropped by 22% in 2024. Meanwhile, Chinese-branded smartphone sales increased by 15%.

Do you know what is worrying? Apple is offering steep discounts on its iPhones now to defend its market in China.

This is reminiscent of the ongoing price war in the electric vehicles industry. Multiple EV players are slashing prices to outcompete each other in a no-holds-barred bare-knuckles fight to the death.

Could this also be happening to the smartphone industry in China?

Sometimes, people ask me - is there a shortcut way of telling if a company’s share price is going up?

I myself, don’t believe in shortcuts.

But there is a way to tell. Who do you think are the most familiar and knowledgeable about a company?

Board, management, and shareholders.

They have the best access to how the company is doing and what their future outlook looks like.

And ShareInvestor has a very useful function that tracks the insider trades in a company. If you don’t know what is that, it is basically the buying and selling activities of the board, management and shareholders of the company.

In the analyst report section above, we highlighted a report on UOB and how its share price has reached a record high.

Guess what?

When I checked UOB’s insider trades through ShareInvestor, two directors of UOB, Wee Ee Lim and Wee Ee Cheong bought some shares in UOB in December 2024.

So, technically, there is a sort of shortcut if you look at what the people inside the company are doing. But it requires you to make a very subjective judgement on it.

If you are interested in using the tool, enter my code: JYSCA5 to register for a ShareInvestor account.

Cheers,
James Yeo