News briefing for Thursday, August 4, 2022

Here’s what else you need to know about China today:

In the aftermath of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s high-profile visit to Taiwan, Beijing has fired off ballistic missiles in the waters surrounding the island and says it will conduct other military drills for the next few days.

CATL curries favor with government with Pelosi announcement: Fujian-based Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited, the world’s biggest supplier of electric-vehicle batteries, says it has delayed announcing a multibillion-dollar North American plant to supply Tesla and Ford because of tensions related to Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

Alibaba and Ant Group are suffering: On Wednesday, Ant Group reported a staggering $1.68 billion net profit decrease — or 17.3% drop — in this year’s first quarter compared with last year. Meanwhile, Ant’s parent company, Alibaba, reported 0% revenue growth for this year’s June quarter on Thursday. This is the first time Alibaba has produced no growth — after continuous double-digit revenue expansion for nearly every quarter since its 2014 public offering.

The 2022 Fortune Global 500 list was released on Wednesday, with 145 Chinese companies making the cut. The revenue from these Chinese companies accounted for 31% of the 500 companies’ total revenue, surpassing the total revenue from U.S. companies on the list (which is 30% of the total) for the first time.

• State Grid, China’s national energy provider, is the highest-ranked Chinese company on the list at number three, just behind U.S. behemoths Walmart and Amazon.
• The top four Chinese tech firms after State Grid are JD.com (46), Alibaba (55), Huawei (96), and Tencent (121).
• However, the average profit made by the Chinese companies on the list is $4.1 billion, much lower than the $6.2 billion average profit made by other Fortune 500 companies.

China’s largest durian distributor and second-largest fresh fruit distributor is set to IPO in Hong Kong, EV battery production is way up, China’s ecommerce logistics recovery has stalled, and services exports are up: Click through to our daily Business Briefs for details on these.

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