Enterprise

Xiaomi’s IPO performs poorly in stock market on first day [Update: It’s doing better now]

Could hamper its performance this year

Published

July 10, 2018

Luigi Leonardo

It’s a bad time to invest in China. After the escalating feud between ZTE and the US, more Chinese companies are feeling the brunt of tense Sino-American relations.

Presently, Chinese phone maker Xiaomi has made a lackluster debut on the stock market. Expecting a valuation of over US$ 100 billion, the company has punched in only US$ 54 billion in valuation, making only US$ 4.7 billion in the IPO.

As for individual stocks, Xiaomi opened to a tepid HK$ 16, much less than their expected HK$ 17.

Prior to the debut, controversies have mired the Chinese market. Just from the company’s perspective, Xiaomi has notoriously expanded their product lineup to include the divisive lifestyle market, most of which have not seen overwhelmingly positive returns yet.

Additionally, ZTE’s troubles with the American government have signaled that Chinese products still aren’t welcome in the West. So far, the issue has affected sales of other Chinese companies including Xiaomi and Huawei, despite their popularity in other countries. Of note, both companies still top the charts all over the world.

Regardless, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun remains confident that their disappointing IPO is only a minor setback to their overall plans. More importantly, he cites that Xiaomi’s goal of maintaining only a five percent profit is still on track.

However, the IPO trouble will undoubtedly cause speed bumps with the company’s plans to expand to the US later this year.

Update (7/10/2018): After the tumultuous debut, Xiaomi’s stocks showed signs of life the day after. During afternoon trading, the shares’ value rocketed up by 9 percent. As a result, their price increased by as much as HK$ 18.56, well above the company’s expectations.

The jump came as Xiaomi announced its inclusion into the Hang Seng Composite Index. The move allows investors from mainland China to invest in Xiaomi’s stocks. Arguably, Chinese investors show more interest toward the company’s future compared to other foreign investors looking at the political issues in the US.

Xiaomi had already decided on the inclusion in the past. However, the company opted to postpone the move in favor of the Hong Kong debut.

Enterprise

ACMobility Launches ChargeFleet: Seamless solution for businesses

B2B solution for corporate fleets and transport groups

Published

February 18, 2026

GadgetMatch

Ayala Group’s ACMobility has launched ChargeFleet, a new B2B digital solution for corporate fleets and transport groups.

The new service introduces a shareable digital wallet that streamlines charging expenses, reduces manual tracking, and improves cost control.

As more organizations explore electrifying their mobility operations, many continue to face operational challenges — including fragmented payment systems, reimbursement delays, and limited visibility over charging usage.

ChargeFleet addresses these gaps by introducing a centralized, shareable digital wallet. Here, fleet managers can allocate and monitor charging credits across multiple drivers across a single platform.

The system is a seamless process designed for long-term usage and easy deployment across any organization.

Once integrated, ACMobility assigns charging credits to the client’s fleet manager. The manager then can distribute these to multiple drivers. Meanwhile, the latter will be able to see and use their assigned credits via the Evro app.

ChargeFleet is available as a prepaid product through the ChargeFleet Store. Users can buy offers via GCash or credit card. No application process is required.

Looking ahead, ACMobility will continue to enhance the ChargeFleet experience with exclusive value-added perks integrated through Evro and Power on Wheels.

The upcoming features highlight ACMobility’s ongoing push to provide a future-proof support system for the evolving needs of their customers’ businesses.

Enterprise

Sony teams up with 13 companies for sustainable global supply chain

Sustainability through introduction of renewable plastics

Published

February 9, 2026

GadgetMatch

Sony, along with several companies, have established the world’s first global supply chain for the production of renewable plastics that can be used in Sony’s high-performance audiovisual products.

The supply chain consists of 14 companies across five countries and regions. The various plastic materials manufacture through this supply are slated for use in Sony’s products that will launch worldwide.

High-performance products such as audiovisual equipment involve a wide variety of plastics. The result is a complex supply chain that makes it difficult to visualize and manage the entire flow.

Additionally, plastic components that require high performance in terms of flame resistance and optical properties cannot be fully replaced with plastics from material recycling.

To address these challenges, these 14 companies have collaborated to visualize the existing supply chain for Sony’s products:

Sony Corporation
Mitsubishi Corporation
ADEKA CORPORATION
CHIMEI Corporation
ENEOS Corporation
Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corporation
Hanwha Impact Corporation
Idemitsu Kosan Co., Ltd.
Mitsui Chemicals, Inc.
Neste Corporation
Qingdao Haier New Material Development Co.
Ltd., SK Geo Centric Co., Ltd.
Toray Industries, Inc.
Toray Advanced Materials Korea Inc.

Sustainability through renewable plastics

The new supply chain created will enable the production of multiple types of renewable plastics from biomass resources with a mass balance approach.

This allows Sony to proactively source raw materials for its products with quality, as well as properties equivalent to virgin fossil-based plastics.

Defining the supply chain also helps the companies track and document GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions data in a verifiable way.

This allows participating companies to leverage the data to advance efforts to reduce their carbon footprint going forward.

Sony’s initiative with a wide range of global partners is part of the “Creating NEW from reNEWable materials” jointly launched by the electronics giant and Mitsubishi.

It aims to achieve zero usage of virgin fossil-based plastics through the introduction of renewable plastics.

Enterprise

realme is reportedly going back to being an OPPO sub-brand

All scheduled phones will still launch on time, though.

Published

January 9, 2026

Luigi Leonardo

A popular story among Chinese smartphone brands is whenever a sub-brand spinning off into its own independent entity. A less common one is when an independent entity suddenly merges back into the main entity. And yet, that’s the story we have today. realme is reportedly going back to being a sub-brand of OPPO.

If you don’t remember realme’s time as a sub-brand, then it’s hardly your fault. It’s been a long while since realme was considered a sub-brand. In 2018, the brand spun off on its own to form one of the most popular names in the Chinese smartphone space.

Today, via Leiphone, realme will return to OPPO as a sub-brand. Current realme CEO Sky Li will still retain his responsibilities heading the brand. Plus, all products on the current release schedule will still come out as planned.

However, starting this year, realme will start reintegrating back into OPPO, particularly through the latter’s after-sales programs. OnePlus will also follow the same structure going forward.

Currently, realme has not officially announced the move. That said, we also don’t know how the brand will address the reported change. It’s possible that the shift is just internal and has no effect on how the brand faces the public. For now, only time will tell.