DATAPOINT OF THE WEEK: Passenger car retail sales in China totaled 1.51M units in May, down 21.8% Y/Y, but up 9.1% M/M, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), marking the eighth consecutive month of Y/Y declines. Despite the broader weakness, NEV penetration reached its highest recorded level ever at 62.9% of retail sales, up 10.1 percentage points Y/Y. NEV retail sales totaled 950K units, down 7% Y/Y and up 11.9% M/M. Within that, BEV sales reached 637K units, up 4.9% Y/Y and 10% M/M, while PHEV sales declined 24.4% Y/Y but increased 15.5% M/M. Notably, exports remained robust at 785K units, up 75% Y/Y, with NEVs comprising 54% of the total, growing 112% Y/Y.
Headlines:
Auto/Transportation
- BYD targets brownfield takeover in southern Europe for second EV plant in Europe with Spain on shortlist to sidestep potential EU tariffs
- Chinese EV makers hike prices up as automotive memory costs surge, IThome reported
- Volkswagen, Stellantis, and Renault press EU for local content rules to shield European auto production
- UAW ends 10-day strike at Dauch axle plant supplying GM trucks with tentative deal
- Nissan targets 30-month vehicle development cycle by importing Dongfeng JV playbook and AI design tools
- Tesla wins Belgium approval for Full Self-Driving supervised software, expanding EU footprint to five countries
- US new vehicle ATP declines slightly in May while inventory holds steady, according to Cox
Datacenter
- Anthropic moves to lease its own datacenters and seeks Google guarantee on payments to lock in 1GW of US capacity, as reported by The Information
- OpenAI weighs steep token price cuts to pull enterprise customers from Anthropic, as reported by The Wall Street Journal
- Oracle reports strong 4Q but free cash flow and margins being pressured by infrastructure buildout
Industrial
- Honeywell narrows preferred M&A range to $2B-$4B, flags industrial automation as key focus
Semiconductors
- Google reportedly places order for Intel to fab over 3M in-house TPUs in 2028, diversifying away from TSMC, according to The Information
- Google in talks with Samsung for memory-interface die on next-gen Icefish TPU using 2nm process, with TSMC retaining main compute, according to The Information
- Infineon and VinRobotics sign MOU to co-develop humanoid robots, opening Southeast Asia channel for Infineon silicon
- Microchip launches 3.3kV SiC power modules targeting SSTs for AI datacenter grid interfaces
- onsemi plans up to 300 more SiC job cuts at Czech plant as Chinese wafer pricing undercuts Western producers by two-thirds, according to e15
- ROHM expanding internal GaN epitaxy manufacturing, ending external foundry reliance for 650V power devices
- Samsung weighs new advanced chip packaging plant in South Korea to close HBM gap with SK Hynix, per Korea Economic Daily
- Global chip equipment spending hits record $36.55B in 1Q as AI capex shifts from cyclical to structural, says SEM
- TSMC May revenue jumps 30% Y/Y as HPC drives 60% of mix and $56B capex fails to relieve capacity constraints
- US senators push to tighten foundries shipping to Chinese firms via overseas front companies, Reuters reported
Consumer
- Memory price surge to drive 16.2% drop in 2026 global smartphone production as low-cost component inventories run dry, according to TrendForce
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