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A residential project in Yau Tong triggered buying euphoria on Saturday, with all 150 units snapped up by midafternoon amid heightened expectations for a recovery in Hong Kong's home market next year. The flats at One Park Place, priced between HK$4.23 million (US$543,684) and HK$9.51 million, were in high demand after developers Sino Land, CSI Properties and MTR Corporation offered discounts of up to 15 per cent to lure buyers. The strong homebuying interest came a day after New World......

China's airlines are encountering severe turbulence over their growing use of extra charges like seat selection fees, as passengers, state media and a consumer protection watchdog slam the practice as a violation of customers' rights. The controversy reflects the difficulties Chinese airlines face as they try to strike a delicate balance between profitability and service quality, with an industry insider cautioning that companies may not be able to scrap extra fees completely. Seat selection......

When US tech giant Meta Platforms released its flagship Llama family of artificial intelligence models in February 2023, they were open-sourced, a move that singled it out among global AI model developers at the time. That September, one of the many derivatives of Llama was announced: Alibaba Cloud's Qwen. The first generation of Qwen adopted Llama's training process and cited Meta's seminal research findings in its accompanying technical report. Out of deference, the Chinese researchers even......

McDonald's Hong Kong was voted Company of the Year at the 2025 Business Awards organised by SCMP Live, a highlight for the company as it marks half a century of operating in the city. The restaurant chain's CEO Randy Lai and chairman Zhang Yichen received the award from SCMP's CEO Catherine So during a lunch ceremony in Hong Kong on Friday. The toned-down ceremony replaced the black-tie gala dinners that traditionally capped the annual awards since their establishment in 1990, as a sign of......

Chinese autonomous-driving technology firm Pony.ai is betting on an “asset-light” strategy and newer generations of low-cost driverless cars to drive growth for its robotaxi operation as the company expects to break even by 2030. Under the asset-light model, Pony.ai would team up with third-party companies – such as taxi operators or ride-hailing platforms – that would fund the deployment of its robotaxi fleet, according to Leo Wang Haojun, chief financial officer. Instead of taking on the full......

Manulife (International), one of the biggest life insurers and pension providers in Hong Kong and Macau, has finished moving its domicile to Hong Kong from Bermuda, making it the first insurer to successfully complete the process under a new regime, according to a statement on Friday. The insurer said the redomiciling was a “strategic milestone” that underscored its confidence in Hong Kong's role as a leading international financial centre and reinforced the company's long-standing commitment to......

Hongkong Land is set to launch what it expects to be the largest private real estate fund in Singapore, with more than S$8 billion (US$6.2 billion) in assets under management, including prime commercial projects in the waterfront Marina Bay district. At inception, the Singapore Central Private Real Estate Fund (SCPREF) would include one-third stakes in One Raffles Quay and Marina Bay Financial Centre Towers 1 and 2, the Hong Kong-based commercial landlord and developer said in a statement on......

Alipay and artificial intelligence glasses maker Rokid have jointly unveiled a smart glasses payment solution on the Rokid Lingzhu AI development platform, giving developers an easy path to build payment functions into their applications. Based on the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open-source standard that connects AI applications to external systems, the service allowed developers to easily integrate pre-built capabilities, such as receiving payments, by adding plug-ins, according to a......

Huawei Technologies is doubling down on foundation models with a newly formed unit, heating up the race for dominance among Chinese tech giants in the artificial intelligence sector. The AI foundation model unit was established under Huawei's 2012 Laboratories, the company's strategic research and development arm that covered domains ranging from wireless technology to AI, according to a report by Chinese media outlet China Star Markets this week. The department was actively recruiting AI......

Hong Kong will need to attract global champion firms across different sectors to raise funds to strengthen the city's role as an international financial centre over the next 10 years, according to a concept paper issued by the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) on Friday. “Global markets do not stand still,” said Benjamin Hung Pi-cheng, chairman of the FSDC, at a media briefing where the council outlined a wide range of ideas to bring the city's capital market to the next level. “Hong......

A more than eight-fold surge in the share price of Chinese graphics processing unit (GPU) maker Moore Threads Technology has prompted the newly listed company to warn investors that the gains may have run ahead of fundamentals. The Beijing-based chipmaker said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Friday that its shares could face the risk of declines after the rapid rally. There was no catalyst that needed to be disclosed and no material change in the company's fundamentals, it......

Chinese artificial intelligence start-up MiniMax plans to channel funds from its proposed Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) into research and development as it seeks to compete with global and domestic rivals, according to a person familiar with the matter. With 70 per cent of its revenue generated overseas, MiniMax was targeting Hong Kong's international investor base and capital market, the person said. The Shanghai-based firm, backed by Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings, was......

Hong Kong stocks rose on Friday as traders positioned for additional growth-supportive measures after Beijing vowed to strengthen the domestic market to buffer against external headwinds at its annual central economic work conference. The Hang Seng Index gained 1 per cent to 25,795.40 as of 10am local time, trimming its weekly loss to 1.4 per cent. The Hang Seng Tech Index advanced 0.9 per cent. On the mainland, the CSI 300 Index dropped 0.1 per cent and the Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.4 per......

Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE), the private investment holding company of the Cheng family and the parent firm of debt-ridden New World Development (NWD), has no plans to sell its prized Rosewood brand, according to sources familiar with the matter. “Rosewood has delivered exceptional results in recent years and is one of the family's most cherished luxury hotel brands,” a source said. The group's properties were operating as usual, with strategic investments in nearly 30......

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is rapidly cementing its position as a global leader in the digital asset sector on the back of its regulatory infrastructure and the institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies, according to industry insiders at the fourth edition of Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW). Speaking at ADFW, the largest financial and investment gathering in the Middle East and North Africa, Binance co-CEO Richard Teng said the UAE had been at the industry's forefront, as capital city Abu......

Global investors should shift their focus from Asia's dominant AI hardware “titans” to a growing group of mid-cap “battleground” sectors that offer stronger growth potential amid intensifying competition, according to BofA Securities. In a report, analysts from the Bank of America investment banking arm mapped more than 330 Asian stocks across 22 subsectors in the artificial intelligence technology layer – representing market capitalisation of nearly US$6 trillion. The most compelling......

Huawei Technologies is reinforcing its position in the foldable smartphone segment with the global launch of the Mate X7, as the market awaits Apple's much-anticipated foldable iPhone and digests the recent announcement of Samsung Electronics' first trifold. The Huawei Mate X7, which was released in China last month, features a thickness of 4.5mm when unfolded. The device, including the battery, weighs up to 236 grams. It was rolled out globally at an event in Dubai on Thursday. Featuring a......

Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE), the parent company of embattled Hong Kong developer New World Development (NWD), is selling Australian utility Alinta Energy to a Singapore-based group for A$6.5 billion (US$4.3 billion). Sembcorp Industries will acquire 100 per cent ownership of Alinta and its units as well as Latrobe Valley Power (LVP) and its subsidiaries from Pioneer Sail Holdings, which is owned by CTFE and Pioneer Sail Singapore, according to Sembcorp's filing with the Singapore stock......

Chinese augmented reality start-up Xreal has teamed up with Google on Project Aura, a venture to launch artificial intelligence glasses powered by the Android XR operating system and Gemini AI next year, in a fresh example of Chinese capabilities in research and development. Project Aura, resembling a pair of thick sunglasses, was first announced at Google's annual I/O developer conference in May. The device runs on Android XR, a unified platform for extended reality (XR) devices built through a......

Hong Kong's initial public offering (IPO) market is on track to maintain its status as the world's top fundraising venue next year, underpinned by a pipeline of mega deals and the return of US capital, according to UBS. The Swiss investment bank expects more than HK$300 billion (US$38.5 billion) to be raised from 150 to 200 IPOs in 2026, surpassing the roughly HK$270 billion raised this year, which vaulted the city back to No 1 globally. UBS also forecast that the city's benchmark Hang Seng......