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Alibaba Boosts Share Buy Back as Revenues Miss Estimates

China’s Alibaba Group Holding on Wednesday missed analysts’ estimates for third-quarter revenue, hurt by a weak retail environment and faltering economic recovery in the world’s second-largest economy.US-listed shares of Alibaba fell 4 percent in early trading after the company flagged an increase of $25 billion to its share repurchase program through the end of March 2027.Alibaba is under pressure as consumers in China, have been cutting spending, boosting rival lower-cost domestic e-commerce players such as PDD Holdings.The group announced the split of its business into six units last March in a transition overseen by co-founders CEO Eddie Wu and Chairman Joe Tsai. Wu, group CEO since September, will directly oversee the domestic e-commerce arm.“Our top priority is to reignite the growth of our core businesses, e-commerce and cloud computing,” Wu said on Wednesday.Alibaba’s net income attributable to ordinary shareholders was 14.4 billion yuan ($2 billion) and net income was 10.7 billion yuan ($1.51 billion), a decrease of 77 percent primarily due to valuation changes from equity investments and impairments related to hypermarket operator Sun Art and online video streaming service Youku.Taobao and Tmall Group revenue grew only 2 percent for the quarter, which includes year-end sales events such as Singles Day that have traditionally provided a boost for the online shopping sites.Executives on a post-earnings call said there was early evidence of a recovery in Taobao and Tmall Group’s gross merchandise volume or GMV.“Our strategy is focused on increasing purchasing frequency, if we do that we will achieve better GMV growth,” Wu said.Rival PDD, which owns Pinduoduo and overseas-focused platform Temu, overtook Alibaba on Dec. 1 to become the most valuable Chinese e-commerce company after Morgan Stanley downgraded Alibaba on concerns over a slower turnaround in its cloud business and customer management revenue. Alibaba scrapped plans to spin off its cloud business last year, citing uncertainties over US curbs on exports to China of chips used in artificial intelligence applications, in a big blow to its market value at the time.This quarter, executives also seemed cool about the near-term potential of public offering prospects for its Cainiao logistics and its grocery business Freshippo, saying that these IPOs had always been subject to market conditions and conditions currently were not in a state to reflect the intrinsic value of these businesses. Last week, sources told Reuters that Alibaba was looking to sell a number of consumer sector assets, including Freshippo, which has been locked in a price war with Walmart’s membership chain Sam’s Club, leading both sides to cut prices on popular items.A Freshippo spokesperson has denied the reports of a potential sale.On a call with analysts following earnings, Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai said it “makes sense” to exit some of the traditional physical retail businesses on its balance sheet, “but it will take time due to challenging market conditions”.Alibaba’s International Digital Commerce segment, which operates various retail and wholesale marketplaces including AliExpress and Alibaba, performed strongly, with AliExpress orders rising 60 percent on the year.“There is huge potential for AIDC [Alibaba International Digital Commerce] to increase penetration in many markets,” said AIDC’s chief executive Jiang Fan on the call with analysts.By Harshita Varghese, Savyata Mishra and Casey Hall; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Sriraj Kalluvila, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Louise Heavens, Elaine Hardcastle Readmore

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Hermès Plans 8% Price Hike as Annual Sales Top $14 Billion

PARIS — Hermès reported another year of chart-topping growth, with annual sales rising 21 percent to €13.4 billion ($14.4 billion). Fourth-quarter sales rose 18 percent, beating expectations and defying the wider slowdown in luxury demand.

The French leather goods powerhouse has long been luxury’s most defensive player, with pent-up demand for its sold-out Birkin and Kelly bags helping the brand to fend off downturns in the broader market.

In recent years, Hermès has also grown sales across categories as top-spending bag collectors buy deeply across the company’s product assortment in a bid to curry favour with sales associates and young aspirational clients learn to recognise (and covet) signature items like enamel bracelets and anchor chain earrings. The brand’s fastest growing categories last year were ready-to-wear and fashion accessories (up 28 percent), jewellery and homeware (up 26 percent), and watches (up 23 percent), the brand said.

Hermès joins a handful of players that have continued to expand amid a broader slowdown for luxury. Louis Vuitton- and Dior-owner LVMH, Cartier-owner Richemont and Italian top-end ready-to-wear specialists Zegna and Brunello Cucinelli all reported double-digit growth in the fourth quarter, while sales were negative at Gucci-owner Kering, Burberry and Ferragamo.

In a meeting with analysts and journalists, CEO Axel Dumas said the brand would raise prices this year by between 8 and 9 percent. In recent years, Hermès has implemented more modest increases compared to rivals that hiked prices aggressively: many Chanel handbags are now priced higher than Hermès’ flagship Birkin style, historically the industry’s most expensive bag.Hermès’ move to increase prices comes as most other brands back away from price hikes in response to softer demand and slowing inflation in key markets. Hermès said the move was simply a function of rising costs. Readmore

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Samsung Galaxy A55, Galaxy A35 Leaked Design Renders Show Colour Options

Samsung Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35, said to succeed the Galaxy A54 5G and Galaxy A34 5G, respectively, are expected to launch soon. Although Samsung has not officially confirmed these models, they have been doing rounds of the rumour mill over the past few months. Hinting at their imminent launch, the handsets have also been spotted on several certification sites. Some of these listings have revealed the expected design of the purported smartphones. Now a tipster has shared what looks like leaked official renders, which also suggest the colour options that the models may come in.Tipster Evan Blass (@evleaks) shared a leaked promotional image of upcoming Samsung handsets. He did not specify the model or models but the “Awesome” tag in the image has been seen in promotional images of previous Galaxy A-series models. This post quotes a previous post by the tipster where he shared two sets of design renders with the caption only reading “A.” These are expected to be the Samsung Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35. These phones could likely launch together and therefore, be promoted together as well, similar to their preceding models.The purported Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 models are seen in black, lime, pink and white colour options across all the leaked images. Both handsets are seen with a key island bump housing the power button and volume rockers on the right edge. Triple rear cameras are seen on the top left corner of the back panel, arranged vertically in separate, round units alongside an LED flash. These design elements match up with previous leaks of both the models we have seen before.The Galaxy A55 was also recently spotted on the TENAA certification site alongside the Samsung Galaxy C55. They were listed with the model numbers SM-A5560 and SM-C5560, respectively. The live images of the Galaxy A55 seen in the listing are similar to the leaked design renders. The phone is expected to be powered by an in-house Exynos 1480 SoC and is likely to be offered in an 8GB + 256GB configuration. On the other hand, the Galaxy A35 is expected to come with an Exynos 1380 chipset alongside 6GB of RAM. It has also been tipped to carry a 5,000mAh battery with 25W wired charging support and a 6.6-inch 120Hz full-HD+ display. The triple rear camera unit is likely to include a 50-megapixel primary sensor, alongside an 8-megapixel and a 5-megapixel sensor, while the front camera is expected to sport a 13-megapixel sensor.Previously, the Galaxy A55 has been tipped with similar battery and charging details as the Galaxy A35. However, this model is expected to feature a 6.4-inch 120Hz full-HD+ Super AMOLED screen, a 32-megapixel selfie camera and a 50-megapixel triple rear camera system with a 12-megapixel ultra-wide lens. It is also likely to arrive with an IP67 rating and Android 13-based One UI 5.1 out-of-the-box.

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Beyoncé Announces Hair Brand Launch

Months after first teasing plans for a hair care line, Beyoncé has announced her new brand, Cécred, will launch later this month.In an Instagram Reel posted Tuesday, video footage from a hair salon is interspersed with shots of hair being washed and teased, with a single frame of Beyoncé appearing near the end. The caption reads, “Hair is sacred. The journey begins Feb. 20.” and directs viewers to Cécred’s website. The website shows a Venn diagram with Cécred appearing where “science” and “ritual” overlap. Beyoncé first hinted at the release of a hair care line in May 2023, with a series of images posted to Instagram, including a photo of herself with a heat tool in front of a vanity, an image of her getting her hair braided as a child and a handwritten note that recalled her first job sweeping up hair in her mother’s salon, and talking about “carrying on” her mother’s legacy.Beyoncé has previously been an ambassador for L’Oréal Paris and Armani Beauty. She released a perfume sold direct to consumers in November. Coty had previously held the licence to make perfumes in her name.The launch comes as celebrity-fronted beauty brands are cooling in the public imagination. But brands such as Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty and Tracee Ellis Ross’ Pattern Beauty have still managed to chime with consumers, leaning on their founder’s personal journeys with beauty, and offering prestige products to underserved markets. Readmore

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The Xiaomi Redmi A3 is coming to India on February 14 with 90Hz display, more RAM

Redmi A3 with a 90Hz display and more RAMThe page mentions another upgrade – 6GB of RAM (plus 6GB more of virtual RAM). The box from the leak listed 4GB of RAM and 128GB storage, so clearly Xiaomi has prepared a new tier. The Redmi A2+ also topped out at 4/128GB (and started at a mere 2/32GB).There’s more – the battery capacity will remain at 5,000mAh capacity as before, but charging is now done via USB-C (the A2/A2+ used microUSB). The charge speed is not mentioned, so we assume it will remain at 10W.

Xiaomi won’t keep the Redmi A3 a secret for much longer – the company just revealed that the new budget phone will arrive in India on February 14 (next Wednesday) and it even confirmed some details.A couple of days ago we shared the first live images of the A3. One of the highlight features listed on the box was the 6.71” 90Hz display and indeed the landing page on mi.com touts the “butter-smooth” 90Hz refresh rate. It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but the Redmi A-series is about as low cost as Android gets.

Redmi A3 with USB-C and a new designThe images we shared also showed off the new design with the massive circular camera island. Xiaomi is calling this the “All-New Premium Halo Design”.Naturally, Xiaomi is keeping the price under wraps for now, we will find out next week. The Redmi A2 was ₹6,300 for a 2/32GB phone and ₹8,500 for the 4/128GB one (actually, this was the price of the 4/64GB model initially, the 4/128GB one replaced it a few months later). The Redmi A3 should be available outside of India too, though details on that are to be announced.

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Realme 12 Pro+ battery life test 2024

The Realme 12 Pro+ battery test results are in and they look good.The device runs on a standard 5,000 mAh battery, just like its predecessor, but the new Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 should, in theory, offer better overall efficiency. And for the most part, the real life tests prove that to be true. The Realme 12 Pro+ has slightly longer battery life with improved talk time and web browsing. However, the Active Use Score is only slightly higher than last year’s Realme 11 Pro+ because there’s no change in the video playback time and the gaming endurance is more than an hour shorter.Compared to the competition, the Realme 12 Pro+ pulls ahead in almost every category. The handset scores higher in talk time, browsing and video playback and only falls short in the gaming test. And even there it’s not far behind.

<#BatteryTest#> Readmore

realme-12-pro-battery-life-test

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Official-looking Nothing Phone (2a) image reveals Glyph-less design

The Nothing Phone (2a) is on its way and we may now know what it will look like.A seemingly official press image of the upcoming device is here to dispel these early hands-on images (because the dual camera is in the wrong place), and suggest that the Phone (2a) won’t feature a Glyph interface.The render shows a phone with a transparent rear panel very similar to the Nothing Phone (1) and (2) but without a wireless charging coil and seemingly no LEDs for a Glyph interface.

Previous rumors have given us an overall good idea of the specs – a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate, Dimensity 7200 chipset paired with 8/12GB RAM, and 128/256GB storage. Phone 2a is expected to bring a pair of 50MP cameras on the back and is rumored to launch with a price tag in the $400/€400 range.

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Realme Announces Valentine’s Day Sale With Discounts on Realme Narzo 60 Series, Narzo N55, and More

Realme has announced a special campaign for Valentine’s Day in India. The sale will offer discounts on the Narzo series and will kickstart on February 6 on the Amazon India website and Realme.com and will end on February 12. A slew of Realme Narzo smartphones including the Realme Narzo 60x 5G, Realme Narzo N55, and Realme Narzo N53 will be available at discounted prices during the sale. The latest Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G and Realme Narzo 60 5G are also confirmed to receive price cuts in the upcoming sale.As mentioned, Realme’s Valentine’s Day campaign will start on February 6 at 12:00pm IST on Amazon.in and Rrealme.com with discounts on multiple Narzo series phones. During the sale, customers buying the 8GB RAM + 128GB storage and 12GB RAM +1TB storage variants of the Realme Narzo 60 Pro 5G will receive a Rs. 2,000 coupon discount while customers purchasing the 12GB RAM + 256GB version will get a discount coupon worth Rs. 4,000. Further, shoppers can apply additional bank offers worth Rs. 2,000. Adding these benefits will bring the starting price of the handset to Rs. 21,999.The base 8GB RAM + 128GB storage model of the Realme Narzo 60 5G can be grabbed at Rs. 14,999, instead of the original launch price of Rs. 17,999. The higher version with 256GB storage will be available for Rs. 16,999, instead of Rs. 19,999.During Realme’s Valentine’s Day sale in India, the Realme Narzo 60x 5G price will start at Rs. 10,999. This marks a cut of Rs. 2,000 from the regular starting price of the phone. Similarly, the Realme Narzo N55 will be listed with a price tag of Rs. 8,999 for the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage version instead of the original price tag of Rs. 12,999.The 4GB RAM+64GB storage variant of the Realme Narzo N53 will be available for Rs. 7,499, instead of Rs. 8,999. Meanwhile, the 8GB RAM +128GB variant of the smartphone will be sold for Rs. 9,499, down from the actual price of Rs. 11,999.Realme’s Valentine’s Day sale will end on February 12.

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Nothing Phone (2a) leaks in hands-on images

Nothing’s upcoming Phone (2a) is expected to launch soon and we now have live images of the device thanks to a new leak. Phone (2a) is wearing a design-concealing case though we can still get a clear look at the screen which features a punch-hole cutout. The back features a pair of cameras – likely a 50MP Samsung GN9 main shooter and a 50MP JN1 ultrawide lens.

Nothing Phone (2a) hands-on images

Nothing Phone (2a) is expected to launch with a 6.7-inch AMOLED with FHD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. According to the most recent rumors, Phone (2a) will be equipped with MediaTek’s Dimensity 7200 chipset with 8/12 GB RAM and 128/256GB storage. Phone 2a is expected to launch with a price tag in the $400/€400 range. Readmore

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5 Apple AI features to expect on iPhones soon: What Tim Cook said and what may be rolling out

While various smartphone companies including Google and Samsung have entered the artificial intelligence (AI) race, Apple is way behind in adopting the technology. While Apple has been hinting at its generative AI, the company is taking a long time to introduce it to the public which is causing iPhone users to question the direction Apple is taking on this new technology. However, in a recent interview, CEO Tim Cook revealed that in 2024 Apple will be rolling out AI features on iPhones via the iOS 18 update. Check out the 5 speculated Apple AI features we might be seeing this year.

Apple AI features for iPhones According to a report by the Verge, Tim Cook, in a recent earnings call, revealed that Apple will be bringing AI tools to its smartphones. It was also revealed that the company is working on generative AI tools.

Cook said, “As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in these and other technologies that will shape the future. That includes artificial intelligence, where we continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort, and we’re excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year.”

Not sure which mobile to buy?

So, what may be coming? Here are some thoughts by analysts.

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According to Apple Analyst Mark Gurman, the company will be announcing its biggest operating system update with iOS 18. This update may bring an enhanced Siri voice assistant. Gurman said, “one of the biggest iOS updates – if not the biggest – in the company’s history” Tech Radar quoted.

2. Additionally, we may see the integration of LLM (large language models) to Siri which will make it a digital assistant like ChatGPT. Therefore, we can expect conversational tools with upcoming upgrades to the iPhone.

3. Apple may also bring AI features to various iPhone apps such as Messages, Apple Music and Pages.

4. There might be some AI features for video and photography but it might not be as significant as the Samsung Galaxy S24 AI camera capabilities, however, it’s a step ahead for Apple to upscale its game to bridge the AI technology gap with other devices.

5. Lastly, Apple may reveal its AI initiatives and features of the upcoming iPhone generation and other devices at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) along with what’s coming to the iOS 18 update.

Also, read other top stories today

Apple foldable coming? Apple may launch its first foldable device in 2026 or 2027, with a 7-8 inch display. Uncertainty surrounds whether it will be a foldable iPhone or iPad. Read all about it here.

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Smartphone launch!

Infinix Smart 8 features an 8+128GB variant. It boasts a 50MP AI camera, innovative design elements, and a powerful MediaTek Helio G36 Octa-Core Processor. Check it out here. Tourists visiting Paris’ Eiffel Tower will now be able to book their trip to the iconic monument using UPI. Read it all here.Beware of Hackers! A recent report has found 12 malicious apps, with 6 on the Google Play Store that are spreading malware. Know how to protect yourself from such threats readmore

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Expecting massive iPhone 16 changes? Ming-Chi Kuo gives a reality check

Their smartphone devices, whereas Apple is reportedly way behind in the race. Kuo also predicts that Apple may experience a decline in the shipment of iPhones in 2024 due to the current AI demand.Apart from that, this year’s iPhone 16 series is speculated to get bigger display sizes. The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max may come in 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch display sizes. Additionally, there is a rumor about a new capture button that will ease the process of capturing videos. However, we can only be sure of these upgrades until Apple announces the iPhone 16 series.Also read other top stories today:Brain Chip Implanted! A lucky individual has become the first human to receive a brain implant from Elon Musk’s Neuralink, marking a step toward being able to steer computers with our minds. Is that the right way to go? Find out out here. Bad news for Apple! Influential technology analyst Ming-Chi Kuo warned that the company is expecting lower demand for iPhone 15 and the upcoming iPhone 16 in 2024. Know all about it here. Samsung Woos China with Ernie Bot! Samsung will feature Baidu Inc.’s Ernie Bot as a key attraction of its new Galaxy S24 smartphone series in China. Dive in here. expecting-massive-iphone-16-changes-ming-chi-kuo-gives-a-reality-check

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Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 to have a cheaper version! Here is a big feature it will lose

The foldable market is growing extensively with Chinese brands bringing innovative products at affordable prices. However, Samsung foldable has always been in the flagship range with a massive price tag. This year Samsung might be planning to bring a cheaper version of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 to meet the user demand and stay relevant in the highly competitive market. Readmore