Tech
-72%
Rani Molla

In April, the month that President Trump first announced reciprocal tariffs on China that peaked at 145%, Chinese smartphone exports to the US, including Apple’s, dropped 72% to under $700 million, down from $2.5 billion a month earlier, Bloomberg reports. That’s the lowest it’s been since 2011. Smartphones saw the biggest month-on-month change in export value of any product China exports. It remains to be seen how much a temporary tariff truce between the two nations revives trade.

In Apple’s second quarter, which covers the three months ending March 29, sales of iPhones and other hardware were the key source of better-than-expected revenues, causing some to fret that this strength was a one-off driven by front-running of potential tariffs.

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Google uses an AI-generated ad to sell AI search

Google is using AI video to tell consumers about its AI search tools, with a Veo 3-generated advertisement that will begin airing on TV today. In it, a cartoonish turkey uses Google’s AI Mode to plan a vacation from its farm before it’s eaten for Thanksgiving.

Like other AI ad campaigns that have opted to depict yetis or famous artworks rather than humans, Google chose a turkey as its protagonist to avoid the uncanny valley pitfall that happens when AI is used to generate human likenesses.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

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Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft combined spent nearly $100 billion on capex last quarter

The numbers are in and tech giants Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft spent a whopping $97 billion last quarter on purchases of property and equipment. That’s nearly double what it was a year earlier as AI infrastructure costs continue to balloon and show no sign of stopping. Amazon, which reported earnings and capital expenditure spending that beat analysts’ expectations yesterday, continued to lead the pack, spending more than $35 billion on capex in the quarter that ended in September.

Note that the data we’re using here is from FactSet, which strips out finance leases when calculating capital expenditures. If those expenses were included the total would be well over $100 billion last quarter.

Apple Store in China

Apple reports Q4 earnings and revenue slightly above Wall Street estimates

The iPhone maker reported its FY 25 fourth-quarter earnings Thursday.

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