Nissan’s wrong turn and Indonesia in the spotlight

Hello everyone, this is Cissy in Hong Kong.

On a recent holiday in Vientiane, I was struck by the extent of Chinese influence in the city. From numerous Chinese restaurants to Chinese-only instructions on my hotel hair dryer, the presence in Laos’ capital was notable. Even more striking was the prevalence of Chinese EVs. At one charging station, the instructions were, again, only in Chinese, and of the five cars charging, two were BYDs and two were Netas, while the fifth one was a VinFast, a Vietnamese brand.

I also encountered a Neta when I called a taxi via a local ride-hailing app. My driver didn’t speak or read a word of Chinese, yet his car’s dashboard was entirely in Chinese, which appeared to be the default setting. He also told me that his vehicle cost more than his friend’s BYD.

Laos has committed to achieving a 30 per cent electric vehicle penetration rate by 2030, but its EV market is still in the making: 2,592 electric cars were sold there last year after the government removed the import limit for EVs in 2022. Chinese manufacturers are actively expanding in south-east Asia. BYD, for example, has established a strong presence in Thailand and Malaysia. Nevertheless, the overall sales volume in the region remains relatively small, especially when compared to the scale of the Chinese market.

Neta, which has a long way to go for its overseas sales to scale up, is also facing a series of crises at home. In the past few months, the company has had to deal with lay-offs, lawsuits and production halts, casting doubt on its planned public listing in Hong Kong and raising concerns among analysts about its very survival in the cut-throat Chinese EV sector.

To address its problems, Neta recently held a meeting with shareholders to seek more funds. But some investors were unwilling to pour more money into the company.

Neta is not the only automaker having a hard time. Its Japanese counterpart Nissan Motor is grappling with another major crisis, just a month after acknowledging a significant business downturn.

Looking for a new road map

Nissan Motor is facing its third major crisis in recent decades, this time as it struggles to adapt to the evolving demands of the American automotive market. A month after acknowledging a slump in business, the company is under pressure to revamp its operations in the US, where it’s seen as an affordable but unremarkable brand, write Nikkei Asia’s Sayumi Take and Yuichi Shiga.

This latest hurdle follows the company’s near-bankruptcy in the late 1990s and the 2018 arrest of former chair Carlos Ghosn for alleged financial misconduct. So far, the current crisis has led to 9,000 job cuts and a shake-up in its leadership team.

Experts attribute Nissan’s predicament to a strategic miscalculation under Ghosn’s leadership, which prioritised smaller, more affordable vehicles. This strategy proved ineffective in the US, where larger SUVs and pick-up trucks dominate sales.

Nissan is taking steps to address its challenges, including accelerating the introduction of hybrid models to its US line-up. There is also some speculation that Nissan might collaborate with Honda for its restructuring in the US.

The quiet competitor

ByteDance has quietly been building its generative artificial intelligence capabilities, luring top talent from rivals, securing AI chips and launching popular AI products.

The TikTok owner is focused on achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), when computer software surpasses human cognitive abilities. The effort is being spearheaded by its founder, Zhang Yiming, who stepped down as CEO in 2021 but remains active in the group’s AI strategy, writes the Financial Times’ Eleanor Olcott.

To power its efforts to become an AI leader, ByteDance has purchased billions of dollars’ worth of Nvidia GPUs, the advanced AI chips for model training, and in the process has become the chipmaker’s biggest customer in China.

ByteDance has a raft of AI products, including its Doubao chatbot, which has emerged as the best challenger to ChatGPT in China. Zhang is betting that generative AI will drive the company’s future growth beyond TikTok and Douyin.

“Yiming can see that ByteDance needs a new growth engine after Douyin and TikTok,” said one person close to Zhang. “He is always thinking about what is coming in the next five years, what can extend the company’s future.”

The place to be

Indonesia is attracting significant interest from global smartphone manufacturers seeking new growth avenues. Chinese brands like Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi, alongside Samsung and Apple, are all eyeing opportunities in the archipelago nation as mature markets like China and Europe remain sluggish, write Nikkei Asia’s Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li.

Oppo, for instance, has transformed its small Indonesian plant into one of its largest overseas production centres, second only to its facility in India. Betting big on local production has helped the smartphone maker cement its position as the top brand in south-east Asia’s most populous nation.

This influx of investment presents an opportunity for Indonesia to bolster its local industry. To sell smartphones in Indonesia, the government requires at least 35 per cent of their content to be sourced locally. Oppo says its phones have about 36 per cent to 37 per cent local components, including batteries, adaptors and software.

Nvidia under scrutiny

Beijing has initiated an antitrust investigation into US chip giant Nvidia, marking the latest escalation in the ongoing technology battle between China and the US, write Nikkei Asia’s Cissy Zhou, Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li.

Beijing claims Nvidia violated Chinese antitrust laws, as well as an acquisition agreement reached in 2020 when authorities granted Nvidia conditional approval for its $6.9bn acquisition of Israel-based Mellanox Technologies. At this stage, it is not clear which of these conditions Nvidia is alleged to have broken.

The probe comes just a week after Beijing unveiled stringent controls on exports of critical raw materials to the US, citing it as a response to Washington’s latest restrictions on chip production equipment and software and the addition of more than 140 Chinese entities to the Entity List, a trade blacklist.

Suggested reads

1. Nvidia’s profit smorgasbord attracts an ant invasion (FT)

2. Hong Kong’s AI supercomputing centre opens amid US crackdown (Nikkei Asia)

3. Can Donald Trump save TikTok? (FT)

4. TSMC’s Morris Chang shares Intel, Samsung and Apple stories in new book (Nikkei Asia)

5. China’s shift to local chips gains momentum from latest US export controls (FT)

6. TikTok asks US court to pause ban until Trump and Supreme Court weigh in (Nikkei Asia)

7. Advertising revenues set to hit $1tn in market dominated by technology companies (FT)

8. Bezos-backed US chip designer plans foray into Tokyo (Nikkei Asia)

9. US chipmaking boom in doubt after Biden’s defeat (FT)

10. Japan can play ‘central role’ in global chips, prime minister says (Nikkei Asia)

#techAsia is co-ordinated by Nikkei Asia’s Katherine Creel in Tokyo, with assistance from the FT tech desk in London.

Sign up here at Nikkei Asia to receive #techAsia each week. The editorial team can be reached at [email protected].