Author: Jaxon Bennett

Chinese brands are reshaping the global marketplace and extending their influence among international consumers — even as US tariffs cast uncertainty over the year ahead. BYD’s electric vehicle sales have overtaken Tesla’s in Europe, and in Brazil seven out of 10 fully electric cars sold are made by BYD. Xiaomi, the world’s third-largest phonemaker, which has put its logo on everything from suitcases to smart washing machines, just added EVs to its list of planned exports. And this year’s must-have handbag accessory, the Labubu doll, is a Chinese export by Pop Mart, which generates almost 40 per cent of its…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Retail & Consumer industry myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The writer, author of ‘Fair or Foul: the Lady Macbeth Guide to Ambition’, is a visiting professor at Bayes Business School, City St. George’s, University of London‘It’s hard work building a brand,” declared Mary Portas, the retail consultant, to contestants on an episode of BBC television show Interior Design Masters. The “Queen of Shops” (a reference to her own TV series) knows what she is talking about. In the 1990s she helped transform the once sleepy Harvey Nichols department store…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Meta is introducing paid advertising to WhatsApp, as the Big Tech group cashes in on the world’s most popular messaging service. On Monday, WhatsApp, which counts 200mn businesses among its more than 3bn monthly active users, said it would roll out the new feature globally over the next few months. The ads will appear in the Status section of the messaging service, visible through the Updates tab on the left of the app screen, so keeping them separate from the main chat…

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldCrypto billionaire Justin Sun’s digital asset platform Tron is set to go public in the US, four months after market regulators agreed to pause a fraud investigation into several of his companies. Tron will go public in a reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed SRM Entertainment in a deal orchestrated by Dominari Securities, a New York-based boutique investment bank with ties to Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, according to two people briefed on the matter.The new venture will buy and hold the…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Technology sector myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.The writer is author of ‘How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations’ and an associate professor at Oxford university Each time fears of AI-driven job losses flare up, optimists reassure us that artificial intelligence is a productivity tool that will help both workers and the economy. Microsoft chief Satya Nadella thinks autonomous AI agents will allow users to name their goal while the software plans, executes and learns across every system. A dream tool — if efficiency alone was enough…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Despite repeated predictions that the rise of mobile platforms, cloud gaming and high-performance PCs would make consoles obsolete, Nintendo has proved that hardware still matters. The record-breaking debut of the Switch 2 has reset the narrative.Nintendo had a target of selling 15mn units of its new console by March next year. Yet in just four days, the Japanese gaming company sold more than 3.5mn units of the $450 Switch 2, its strongest launch on record. The momentum is notable for a hybrid…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Technology sector myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Anne Wojcicki has been declared the winner of a bankruptcy auction for 23andMe, the genetics testing start-up she founded, prevailing over a rival bid from Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. TTAM Research Institute, a non-profit public benefit company also founded by Wojcicki, won the auction with a $305mn bid for the 23andMe assets, which will not come with any company liabilities attached. 23andMe had filed for bankruptcy in March after rejecting several go-private offers from Wojcicki in recent years. Regeneron had been announced as the…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A $35bn US semiconductor industry merger is being delayed by Beijing’s antitrust regulator, after Donald Trump tightened chip export controls against China in a move that exacerbated trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.China’s State Administration for Market Regulation has postponed its approval of the proposed deal between Synopsys, a maker of chip design tools, and engineering software developer Ansys, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.The transaction between the American groups, which has received the blessing of authorities…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Airbnb has blamed “overtourism” in Europe on the hotel industry, as the US short-term home rentals group hits back against criticism from regulators and residents that its service is leading to overcrowding in holiday hotspots.Theo Yedinsky, vice-president for public policy at Airbnb, told the Financial Times that the company is the victim of “scapegoating” by local authorities, such as in Barcelona, where there have been protests against the post-pandemic boom in overseas travel.“We end up getting a lot of the blame, especially…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The European Commission’s powerful competition directorate is blocking a push that would allow governments to subsidise the production costs of clean energy technologies, flaring tensions between EU officials enforcing state-aid rules and those working on industry.Teresa Ribera, the EU’s competition commissioner, is refusing to exempt the operating costs of solar panel, wind turbine and battery producers from the bloc’s notoriously strict state-aid regime, said four people with knowledge of the talks.The internal battle highlights the EU’s executive’s struggle to navigate the challenge…