Baidu’s version of ChatGPT, Drop in luxury market, Japanese car sales

Baidu is making a ChatGPT-like product: Baidu says that it will release an AI chatbot similar to ChatGPT in March, and it will be called ERNIE Bot (文心一言 wénxīn yīyán).

China’s luxury market contracted for the first time in five years after personal luxury sales decreased by 10% year-on-year in 2022, according to a new report by Bain and Company. The report attributes the decline to COVID, the real estate slowdown, and rising unemployment, but expects positive growth to appear again in 2023.

Sales of Japanese cars in China tanked in January: Nissan sold 47,521 units, a decrease of 64.4% year-on-year, while Honda sold 64,193 units, a decrease of 56.2%, and Toyota sold 113,800 units, a drop of 23.5%. With the exception of BYD, all auto brands in China reported low sales in January due to the termination of government subsidies for electric vehicles on January 1 and the Spring Festival low season.