On April 8, American anchor Li Jiaqi stated during a Taobao live broadcast event that he might miss two quarters of live broadcasts, triggering speculation that he would suspend live broadcasts. However, Li Jiaqi said on social media that night, “I made a mistake in the afternoon, it was two months, not two quarters.
In 2025, Semir Apparel handed over an annual report card that seemed stable at first glance: revenue remained at 15 billion yuan, an increase of 3.17 percentage points.
In a year when overall consumption is under pressure, it is not easy to maintain scale.
But if you look away from revenue, the real changes in this company occur on the other side. In addition to low single-digit growth in revenue, net profit attributable to the parent company, earnings per share, total assets, and net assets attributable to shareholders of listed companies all recorded negative growth.
Behind the increase in revenue but not profit is: franchise stores continue to have net outflows, direct sales revenue has increased by more than 30% year-on-year, and sales expense rates have increased. The income is still there, but the price that needs to be paid in exchange for this income is no longer the same.
The company is using higher costs to maintain what it built two decades ago.
How do the neighbors of Baleno survive today?
Semir's early success was actually not that complicated.
In 1996, Qiu Guanghe started in Wenzhou, using the franchise chain model. Most of the store's rent, decoration, and inventory are borne by franchisees. The headquarters charges brand fees and product price differences, leveraging an extremely wide channel network with extremely low own assets.
The elegance of this model is that expansion requires almost no additional capital, the risk is spread among thousands of franchisees, and the headquarters reaps the bargaining power of scale.
There is still a gap in the low-tier market. User acquisition depends on store density. Opening a new store means adding a new batch of customers. The logic was almost impeccable at first.
That is also a very typical dividend of the times. There is room for channels, consumption is growing, and competition is not yet too fierce. "Opening a store" is almost equal to "having customers", and expansion is almost equal to "growth".
At first it was Semir’s casual wear. In its early days, Semir's positioning of "comfortable experience and quality life" attracted many young people in the face of the then "street fighters" Baleno and Giordano.
But by 2010, the space for casual wear began to narrow, and competition turned from incremental to stock. Qiu Guanghe’s children’s clothing brand Balabala began to take over the “big stick” of growth.
Qiu Guanghe's eyes were very vicious. As early as 2002, he saw a gap in the children's clothing market, advocated professionalism, fashion, and vitality, and aimed at well-off families in middle-income families.
At that time, China's children's clothing market was extremely low-concentration, with messy products and a brand vacuum. Balabala uses chain franchising and uses similar channel genes as casual clothing to rapidly replicate and expand.
China's children's consumer market began to expand rapidly in the mid-2010s. At that time, China was experiencing the peak of newborns. The two-child policy coupled with consumption upgrades meant that post-80s parents who were willing to spend money on their children needed branded children's clothing.
Semir Clothing has taken another "hitchhike".
The shift to children's clothing business is particularly important for Semir Apparel. It is more like a structural correction.
Semir Apparel's core business, casual apparel, is essentially a typical cyclical business: affected by fashion, with obvious fluctuations and strong substitution. Such companies are not scarce in the capital market, and it is difficult to obtain stable valuation expectations.
Barabara changed that. Children's clothing consumption is closer to immediate needs, with higher repurchase frequency and longer life cycle. It provides Semir with a more stable source of income and allows the company to move from an "apparel company" to a "consumer products company."
In 2011, Semir Apparel was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. As a core asset, Balabala is a solid backing for its successful listing. From 2015 to 2019, Semir Apparel’s operating income grew at double digits.
The environment begins to change
2020 will be a turning point for Semir Apparel’s performance.
That year, Semir's apparel operating revenue was 15.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 21.37%, and its net profit was 806 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 48%. The net profit was almost halved.
Change doesn't happen suddenly.
The franchise system is an advantage in the expansion stage, but when the market enters stock competition, this system begins to expose its other side: difficult management, uneven efficiency, and weak brand execution.
For a brand trying to move up, this is a real hurdle.
So Semir began to shrink franchises and expand direct sales. In 2025, the company closed 163 directly operated stores and opened 211 new ones; it closed 1,236 franchise stores and opened 848 new ones.
During the period, the revenue growth rate brought by the direct operation model reached 30.25%, the revenue brought by franchise stores decreased by more than 5 percentage points compared with the previous year, and online sales revenue increased by 4.50%.
Increasing direct sales gives Semir greater control over channels and makes brand execution more unified.
But there's a trade-off: It's a heavier set of business.
The essence of franchising is to transfer fixed costs such as rent and labor. Once it changes to direct operation, store rent, shopping guide salary, and inventory risk will all fall back on the company.
The larger the scale, the more obvious this weight becomes.
At the same time, traffic is becoming more expensive.
In the past, stores were the entrance to traffic. Things are different now. Consumers are spending more and more time on their mobile phones, on short video platforms, and on various content. The store is still there, but it is no longer an entrance, it is just a conversion scene.
Traffic on social/e-commerce platforms is becoming more and more expensive, and it has become a continuously rising item in sales expenses.
In 2025, Semir Clothing's sales expenses will reach 4.235 billion, a year-on-year increase of 12.88%, mainly due to the increase in online platform shipping fees and the corresponding increase in expenses for newly opened offline stores in this period.
The increase in traffic costs is actually a change in the form of channel costs. In the past, it was rent, but now it is traffic price. It’s just that the latter is more uncontrollable and unpredictable.
Children's clothing, a trump card, is also a focus point
If only the cost structure is changing, it can be said to be a "transformation pain" and it is an acceptable transition.
But there's another thing that makes the problem even harder to deal with: dependence on children's clothing.
In 2025, Semir's children's clothing revenue will be 10.8 billion yuan, accounting for more than 71% of the overall revenue, and its proportion of total revenue has quietly increased by 1.36 percentage points.
Coupled with the two authorized businesses of ASICS Kids and PUMA Kids, the entire group's business focus is almost entirely concentrated on children's consumption.
From a strategic logic point of view, this is a deliberate choice.
Balabala has achieved the largest scale in the domestic children's clothing market, and its brand recognition and channel coverage have reached a certain level. The judgment itself of concentrating resources on this strongest line and cultivating it deeply rather than spreading it out makes sense.
But this also means that all external pressures will be concentrated on children’s consumption. There is no other business curve to cushion, no other categories to hedge costs.
The demand for children's clothing market has gone through two stages in the past ten years: first, the incremental period driven by demographic dividend, and then the quality improvement driven by consumption upgrade. Balabala has experienced both stages.
But now is the third stage.
Declining birth rates, intensified consumption stratification, and intensified competition among domestic and foreign brands are not structural trends that a company can fight against. As a result, those problems that originally belonged to "industry changes" will directly become Semir's problems.
Balabala general manager Will said in an interview that the declining birth rate is actually a reshuffle in the industry, and "the next competitive focus of children's clothing is whether it can truly understand the parent-child relationship in this era."
Behind this is Balabala's ability to seize the changes in the children's clothing market. Children's clothing is no longer just for children's consumption, but a part of family relationships. It began to introduce narratives of companionship, growth and interaction into its products and marketing, trying to embed itself in family relationships.
But this understanding is still superficial.
It is more like inheriting a set of mainstream consensus that has been formed and covering different families and different scenarios as much as possible, rather than proactively proposing a more distinct value position. The result is that the expression is broad enough, but not deep enough; the coverage is broad enough, but it is difficult to form a stronger identity.
The lack of a clear position is bound to make it difficult to establish stronger recognition and premium. This also allows a variable that could have become a "new moat" to remain in the "marketing language" stage for the time being.
It's changing its way of life, but it hasn't fully adapted yet
Judging from its actions, Semir is not a company that is blind to changes.
Shrinking franchising and expanding direct sales is to solve the problem of channel control; increasing sales investment is responding to the migration of traffic entrances; deepening the focus on children's clothing is concentrating resources in the most advantageous direction.
Semir has also invested in mid- to high-end brands.
Semir Apparel's cooperative brands include Jason Wu and SHUKU, and it has established joint ventures with the two brands respectively. In addition, in addition to Asics Kids and Puma Kids, Semir Clothing also has a Nordic fashion lifestyle brand Marc O' Polo.
These judgments, taken individually, all make sense.
But there is a question that, taken together, remains unanswered: If it no longer relies on low-cost expansion, what exactly is the core advantage of this business?
This is not a question that can be answered with a strategy document, it needs to be proven with real business results.
Is it product power? Then there needs to be visible investment and differentiation in design, research and development, and fabrics, so that consumers can actively choose Balabala at the same price, not because "the store is close to home."
Is it brand power? Then it is necessary to achieve a certain level of emotional resonance and mental occupation, so that "buying clothes for children" becomes a habitual cognition, rather than a choice that can be replaced at any time.
Is it a user relationship? Then we need a consumer operation system that can continue to accumulate and be activated repeatedly, so that every parent who buys Balabala will have a higher repurchase rate and stronger brand stickiness.
Semir is doing all three of these things. But to what extent it has been achieved and how many real barriers to competition it has created are still unclear.
Before this answer appears, all it can do is maintain its current scale and position at a higher cost. It's a working business, but not an easy one.
Although it has not entered a real crisis, Semir Apparel is getting further and further away from that period of easier "counting money". Not into a real crisis, but it's moving further and further away from that easier period.
On April 9, market research organization Omdia released the global PC market report for the first quarter of 2026. Data show that in the first quarter of 2026, the global PC market increased by 3.2% year-on-year to 64.8 million units. In the market segments, notebook computers (including mobile workstations) increased by 2.6% year-on-year to 50.8 million units. Desktop computers (including desktop workstations) performed even more strongly, increasing by 5.4% year-on-year to 14 million units. The overall market showed a phased recovery trend.
The growth drivers mainly come from three aspects: first, manufacturers and channels prepare stocks in advance to cope with rising costs; second, the Windows 10 replacement cycle continues to promote corporate procurement; third, the pace of new product releases in spring is accelerated, driving the release of phased demand.
But the foundation for this growth is not solid. Omdia chief analyst Ben Yeh pointed out that as supply chain pressure continues to rise, the first quarter may become the high point of shipment performance for the whole year. From a cost perspective, AI data centers have continued to intensify their use of resources since 2025, causing memory and storage prices to rise approximately five times and three times respectively, and are expected to rise further in the second quarter of 2026. At the same time, Intel and AMD also expect CPU prices to rise by 10% to 25%, further compressing the profit margins of machine manufacturers.
By region, cost pressure in North America is borne more by channel vendors than by end customers. The decline in the Japanese market is more significant, which may be due to the high shipment base in the first quarter of 2025, as well as the high cost and parts supply pressure in the education field. The momentum is no longer the same as in 2025; the weakening of policy momentum may also become one of the main factors for the shrinkage of the Japanese market in 2026.
Judging from the ranking, Lenovo continued to rank first with 16.5 million units shipped, with a market share of more than 25%, a year-on-year increase of 8.7%, further consolidating its advantages in commercial and global channel capabilities; HP declined year-on-year due to weak demand in Europe and the United States. 4.9%, with a market share of 12.14 million units, accounting for 18.7%, maintaining second place; Dell increased by 7.8% year-on-year, with shipments reaching 10.29 million units, ranking third with a 7.8% share; Apple benefited from MacBook Driven by Air and new products, it achieved a growth of 5.4%, with shipments reaching 7.11 million units, and a market share of 5.4%, ranking fourth. ASUS maintained double-digit growth, with shipments reaching 4.6 million units, and a market share of 7.1%, ranking fifth.
Global PC shipments in the first quarter of 2026 Omdia
Mainland China's PC market will also show the impact of shifting demand and rising costs. According to Omdia data, for the whole of 2025, China's PC market will grow by 6% year-on-year to 42.1 million units, mainly supported by consumer subsidy policies and commercial demand. However, in 2026, as the subsidy intensity drops from about 30% to about 15%, and quotas and phased distribution mechanisms are introduced, Omdia predicts that China's PC market is expected to decline by 10% year-on-year to 37.9 million units in 2026, entering a typical "post-subsidy cycle."
Broken down into brands, in the fourth quarter of 2025 in mainland China's PC market, Lenovo ranked first with 4.6 million units shipped, with a market share of 40%, a year-on-year increase of 13%; Huawei ranked second with 1.3 million units shipped, with a market share of 11%, a year-on-year increase of 16%. HP ranked third with 1.2 million units shipped, with a market share of 10%, a year-on-year increase of 22%. iSoftStone shipped 900,000 units, with a market share of 8%, but fell 20% year-on-year, ranking fourth; Apple shipped 700,000 units, occupying 6% of the market share, growing 14% year-on-year, ranking fifth.
Mainland China PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2025 Omida
Overall, the PC market in 2026 is changing from demand-driven to cost- and structure-driven. The global market will still have shipment support in the short term, but cost pressures will gradually emerge; the Chinese market is the first to enter an adjustment cycle and needs to find a new growth balance between subsidies and falling demand. The key to the future competitive landscape lies in whether manufacturers can control costs while strengthening AI capabilities and product structures to stimulate market vitality.
A few days ago, reporters learned from China Railway Harbin Bureau Group Co., Ltd. that as an important railway hub in the Northeast region, Harbin Railway Station and trains pick up a large number of passengers' lost items every year, covering documents, electronic products, cash, luggage and other items. During the Spring Festival travel period, Harbin Station alone picks up hundreds of items lost by passengers every day on average. Although the staff worked hard to find and return them, some items were still stranded for a long time due to incomplete information. Railway staff said that these methods will help passengers find their lost items.
According to official statistics from Harbin Railway, at major stations such as Harbin Station, Harbin West Station, and Qiqihar Station, dozens of lost items are picked up every day. During peak passenger flow periods such as Spring Festival, Summer Transport, and holidays, the number of items picked up in a single day surges to hundreds. Taking the 2026 Spring Festival as an example, the Harbin Railway Public Security Department recovered more than 2,100 items of lost property for passengers, saving nearly 1.4 million yuan in economic losses.
In terms of types of lost items, ID cards, bank cards and other documents accounted for the highest proportion, accounting for almost 30% of the total; followed by electronic products such as mobile phones, headphones, and computers, as well as daily necessities such as backpacks, suitcases, and clothing. Valuable items such as cash, jewelry, and important documents also appeared from time to time. Most of these items are left behind in waiting room seats, security checkpoints, train seats, sleeper berths, toilets, luggage racks and other areas. These items are often caused by passengers rushing to catch the train, focusing on their mobile phones, or having too much luggage and neglecting to check it.
There is no need to panic after items are lost. Harbin Railway has established an online and offline linkage lost item search and return system.
Online, passengers can log in to the railway 12306 APP and submit information through the "My - Warm Service - Lost Items" function;
You can also call the 12306 customer service hotline to clearly explain the train number, time, seats and item characteristics. Offline, you can go to the station service desk, lost and found office, or ask the nearest staff for help.
All found items will be strictly registered, entered into the system, affixed with unique labels and properly kept. ID cards and other documents will be registered in the 12306 system, and passengers with reserved information can receive SMS notifications for collection. Once found, the items can be handed over to the station ahead by train, etc., so that passengers can collect them nearby. They can retrieve them after verifying that the information is correct and signing.
The railway department hereby reminds passengers: Be sure to take care of your belongings when traveling and carry valuables with you; do not indulge in mobile phones while riding or waiting; carefully check around the seats, bunks, luggage racks and pockets before leaving your seat and getting off the train; mark them when carrying multiple pieces of luggage to avoid taking them by mistake.
At the time of the Hong Kong IPO, Baiwei Storage’s “patent litigation battle” escalated again.
On the evening of April 8, Baiwei Storage announced that the company had recently received a "Response Notice" from the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court. Emtier Storage Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Emtier Company") filed a lawsuit with the court over two disputes over infringement of invention patent rights. The plaintiff requested compensation of 50 million yuan.
According to the announcement, this case is two new patent lawsuits based on the same patent package, involving eMMC standard products. As early as 2025, Emtier has initiated two invention patent lawsuits against Baiwei Storage, and the court proceedings have been opened in April this year. This new lawsuit means that the litigation tug-of-war between the two parties has intensified.
Regarding the new lawsuits, Baiwei Storage stated in the announcement that after preliminary assessment, the above-mentioned lawsuits will not have a significant adverse impact on the company's production, operations and financial status. At the same time, as of the announcement, the two lawsuits have not yet been heard.
For Baiwei Storage, this is a critical period.
This semiconductor memory company submitted a prospectus to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in September 2025. It is still in the process of Hong Kong stock IPO, which is an important period for the impact of listing. At the same time, the patent lawsuit filed by Emtier targets Baiwei Storage's R&D capabilities and the "gold content" of its patents. This is a "cut to the core" accusation for the semiconductor industry, which already values these two elements.
In addition, according to the 2025 financial report data just released by Baiwei Storage, the company's net profit attributable to the parent company last year was 853 million yuan. According to the plaintiff's compensation amount of 50 million, it has exceeded 5% of the net profit attributable to the parent company last year. The potential risk is that if the plaintiff is supported, it will not be ruled out that other companies will also initiate compensation lawsuits against the patent, which will cause continuous erosion of the company's profits.
Behind the plaintiff lies an industry rival
Baiwei Storage is a well-known semiconductor storage company in China. It was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Shenzhen. Its main business includes the research and development, production and sales of semiconductor memories. Its main products and services are semiconductor storage solutions and advanced packaging and testing services, which are used in servers/data centers, smartphones, tablets, computers and other industries as well as in the field of personal mobile storage.
The company will be listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board at the end of 2022, and leading companies such as OPPO, VIVO, Lenovo, Meta, Google, Alibaba, and Xiaomi are its customers in different product fields. According to earlier financial report data, Baiwei Storage will only turn losses into profits in 2024, and will achieve revenue of 11.3 billion yuan and net profit attributable to the parent company of 850 million yuan in 2025, a profit increase of more than 465%.
It is worth noting that standing behind the plaintiff is Longsys, also a leading company in the semiconductor storage industry. The litigation "confrontation" during the IPO period will undoubtedly further intensify the competition between the two parties.
If you look through the equity of the plaintiff Emtier, you will find that this company has only two shareholders. Among them, the American company Memory Technologies LLC (hereinafter referred to as "MTL") holds 51% of the shares, and Shenzhen Anjiecun Electronics Co., Ltd. holds 49% of the shares.
Information shows that Shenzhen Anjiecun is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Longsys. In other words, the main party in the lawsuit against Baiwei Storage is Longsys's grandson company.
Baiwei Storage also mentioned in the announcement that MTL is marked as a Patent Assertion Entity (that is, a company that mainly obtains income through patent licensing or patent litigation) in patent litigation databases such as Unified Patents Portal. The company is in active licensing negotiations for the patent package held by MTL. During the negotiation process, the owner of a small number of patents in the patent package was changed to Emtier, the plaintiff in the above two cases.
A lawyer engaged in patent litigation in East China said that there are indeed some companies in the technology industry that hold patents that are relatively important or have relatively wide coverage in the industry: "As long as you are engaged in this industry, you cannot circumvent its patented technology. Therefore, many industry companies must obtain patent licenses from this company, or this company can obtain benefits through continuous appeals for compensation."
The specific patents involved this time are two patents in one patent package, both involving the expanded utilization area of storage devices. The original applicant of one of the patents was MTL, and the original applicant of the other patent was Nokia. Both were later transferred to Emtier, and the patent expiration dates are January 30, 2029.
This situation is similar to the lawsuit filed by Yuanxuzhi Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yuanxuzhi Company") in June last year.
According to the announcement at the time, Yuanxuzhi also filed a lawsuit against Biwin Storage for two disputes over infringement of invention patent rights. The patents involved also involved Biwin eMMC products. The original applicants for the patents were Nokia Corporation, and were later transferred to MTL, Longsys Electronics (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd., and Emtier Corporation.
Two months before Yuanxuzhi filed a lawsuit against Baiwei Storage, Emtier had just signed a "Patent Implementation License Contract" with Yuanxuzhi, licensing the patent to Yuanxuzhi for use.
However, the expiration date of this patent is November 27 this year, and the time of prosecution is closer to the expiration date of the patent. At the same time, the amount of compensation requested by Yuanxuzhi at that time was 1.2169 million yuan, which was far lower than the amount of compensation demanded in the recent lawsuit.
This lawsuit was withdrawn in September last year, but not long after, Emtier again sued the court for the same invention patent dispute. The lawsuit was heard on April 2 and 3 this year.
Litigation directly hits the "vital gate" of listing
Regarding the impact of new lawsuits on the company, Baiwei Storage stated in the announcement that during the licensing negotiation process for the patents involved, the company always adhered to the FRAND principle (the principle of fairness, reasonableness, and non-discrimination), actively cooperated with the negotiations, showed full goodwill and willingness to cooperate, and made no obvious mistakes.
At the same time, the company believes that the amount of damages claimed by the plaintiffs in the two cases involved in this announcement lacks evidence support, and it is expected that the litigation will not have a significant adverse impact on the company's profits for the current and subsequent periods.
Baiwei Storage added in the announcement that the plaintiff's current compensation amount is 50 million yuan. According to the "Patent Law of the People's Republic of China", if the loss of the right holder, the benefits obtained by the infringer and the patent license fee are difficult to determine, the people's court can determine the compensation to be between 30,000 yuan and 5 million yuan based on factors such as the type of patent right, the nature and circumstances of the infringement.
In this regard, the above-mentioned intellectual property lawyer said that as for the amount of compensation for infringement of patent property rights, the court must first determine whether it actually constitutes infringement: "After determining the infringement, it also depends on the contribution rate of the infringing patent to the overall product, the duration of the infringement, and how much of the technology is publicly available on the market."
He also mentioned that if the defendant has benefited greatly from patent infringement, then it does not rule out the possibility of exceeding the 5 million statutory compensation amount stipulated in the Patent Law: "It mainly depends on how much evidence the plaintiff has."
Since Baiwei Storage is in the critical period of the Hong Kong IPO, it is being sued in court for patent infringement. Whether it will affect its listing process is also a matter of concern to the market.
Baiwei Storage emphasized in the announcement that the lawsuit will not have a significant adverse impact on the company's production, operations and financial status. However, a relevant person from the Securities Department also said in a reply to "21st Century Business Herald", "We still need to determine internally whether it will have an impact on Hong Kong stocks (IPO)."
The above-mentioned lawyer also mentioned that intellectual property rights such as patents are industry barriers for many technology companies and are also an important factor in being recognized by the capital market. If it does constitute infringement and the infringement is on a relatively important patent in its own business, the impact on the company to be listed will be quite "destructive".
But he also admitted that at this stage, technology companies are intensively listed and are the "sweet potato" of the capital market, so lawsuits against IPO companies are also relatively common.
It should be mentioned that Longsys, the plaintiff behind this lawsuit, and Baiwei Storage, the defendant, are both in the process of the Hong Kong stock IPO. Longsys submitted its application to the Hong Kong stock market in March last year, earlier than Baiwei Storage, but the materials had expired in September last year.
Interestingly, after the announcement of the lawsuit, Baiwei Storage's A-share stock price did not seem to be greatly affected. After a slight drop the day after the announcement, on April 10, affected by the general increase in the memory chip sector index, Baiwei Storage's stock price also rose by 6.15%. The stock price closed at 241.51 yuan per share, with a market value of 113.712 billion yuan. Longsys was affected by the same positive news, and its stock price also rose simultaneously. It closed at 341.3 yuan per share on April 10, with its total market value reaching 143.054 billion.
Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman insisted on April 8 that Apple’s first foldable screen iPhone will still be released in September as planned.
Just the day before, Nikkei Asia reported another picture: the engineering verification and testing phase encountered more complex problems than expected. The hinge yield rate was only 30% to 65%, and the screen creases could not be eliminated. In the worst case, mass production may be delayed for several months.
The tug-of-war between the two voices just exposes the real dilemma of Apple’s folding screen - Huawei Mate
The era when suppliers worked hard to squeeze into Apple's supply chain is gone forever. What replaced it was a collective rational defense based on "Ophelia fear." Working for Apple has gone from being a ticket to the top spot in the A-share market to a toxic asset that may return to zero overnight.
Looking deeper, Apple itself is in structural trouble. It is still a reluctant monarch of the global supply chain and a sandwich layer in the geopolitical game. When security and politics replace pure market logic and become the primary variable in supply chain decisions, Apple's control techniques that rely on technological leadership and business reputation are experiencing unprecedented backlash. In this sense, Apple's toxicity does not only refer to its strong treatment of suppliers, but also to a distorted macro environment - an environment in which commercial rationality gives way to political narratives, and Apple is both a pressurer and a victim.
1. From the myth of wealth creation to the closed loop of fear
To understand Apple's current predicament, one must look back at the dramatic turnaround in its supply chain relationships over the past fifteen years.
It was an era of wealth creation belonging to the fruit chain. Wang Laichun, the founder of Luxshare Precision, once said that flying with the phoenix must be a handsome bird. In order to get orders from Apple, Luxshare pursues a close-to-customer strategy. Foxconn will build factories wherever they go. In 2017, when Inventec was struggling with the yield rate of AirPods, Luxshare not only overcame the problem, but also shortened the product delivery cycle from five to six weeks to one to three days, winning the exclusive OEM right in one fell swoop.
This faith-based collaboration has paid off handsomely. Luxshare Precision’s revenue was less than 10 billion yuan when it went public in 2010, but it had soared to 268.7 billion yuan in 2024. Wang Laichun also ranked the fourth richest female in China with a net worth of 85.5 billion yuan in March 2026. The same story happened to Goertek and Lens Technology. At that time, entering the fruit chain was synonymous with technical strength and global reputation, and was a proven high-speed upward path.
The turning point began in March 2021. Apple suddenly kicked OFILM out of the supply chain. The superficial reason was supply chain adjustment, but the industry generally believes that the geopolitical background of being included in the U.S. Entity List was the key pressure for Apple to make the decision to cut. This company that has been OEMing for Apple for many years collapsed instantly: its revenue in 2021 was cut by 52.75% year-on-year, with a net loss of 2.665 billion yuan, its stock price plummeted 70%, and its market value evaporated by more than 30 billion yuan. What's even more fatal is that some of the special equipment and process standards customized for Apple are difficult to directly reuse in Huawei and Xiaomi's product lines, resulting in low production capacity utilization during the conversion period and a sharp increase in asset impairment pressure.
However, Ou Feiguang did not die as expected. After the return of the Huawei Mate 60 series in 2023, OFILM won most of the orders for camera modules; in 2025, it will also exclusively supply camera modules for Xiaomi AI glasses and SU7 Ultra. This abandoned fruit chain company, once abandoned by Apple, relied on orders from Hualian and Milian to urgently add new production lines at its Nanchang factory, achieving a dramatic turnaround.
But the price of this renewal is that OFILM has shifted from being deeply bound to Apple to equally deeply dependent on Huawei and Xiaomi. In 2024, the sales revenue share of its top five customers will increase from 69.54% to 77.35%. OFILM's case has thus become a preview of suppliers' worst fears: no matter which chain they switch to, over-reliance on a single customer's high-investment model is a high-risk gamble.
If OFILM's resurrection had given the market a glimmer of luck, then the experience of Wingtech Technology had completely extinguished this glimmer of hope. In 2021, Wingtech acquired OFILM's original Apple camera business for 2.42 billion yuan, intending to enter the fruit chain. After difficult compliance reforms and production line upgrades, its Kunming factory will finally start manufacturing MacBooks for Apple in 2023. However, in December 2024, Wingtech was included in the entity list by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and all efforts came to nothing in an instant. In 2025, Wingtech was forced to sell all of its foundry business to Luxshare Precision for about 4.4 billion yuan.
Apple’s sandwich layer dilemma is highlighted here. OFILM was abandoned due to Apple's hedging choice under geopolitical pressure; Wingtech was blocked due to external sanctions beyond its control. Apple is both the enforcer of pressure and the passive party unable to protect its partners. This dual role allows suppliers to see clearly the fact that when cooperating with Apple, they not only have to face its commercial strength, but also bear non-market risks that it cannot shield. No matter how good the technology is, it may be abandoned by Apple for non-commercial reasons; compliance operations may also be sanctioned by external forces beyond Apple's control.
The two cases are superimposed to form a complete closed loop of fear - it declares to all Chinese suppliers that investing in dedicated assets and excessive technology investment for Apple is a high-risk gamble with an uncontrollable outcome. The risk-benefit formula of Fruit Chain Certification, which once symbolized glory and wealth, has been completely rewritten.
2. From faith-based cooperation to risk pricing
Fear directly leads to fundamental changes in behavioral patterns.
In the past, the belief-based cooperation that took the initiative to advance regardless of costs has now been replaced by a calculated and defense-first risk consideration. This shift is essentially about pricing non-market risks.
Leading suppliers are taking the initiative to reduce their dependence on Apple. Luxshare Precision's revenue from Apple has dropped from approximately 75% in 2022 to 64.3% in the first half of 2025. Its strategic focus has clearly shifted: through the acquisition of Germany's Leoni wiring harness business and Wingtech's ODM department, it will aggressively enter the automotive electronics and Android mobile phone camps. In the first nine months of 2025, Luxshare's automotive business revenue surged 155% year-on-year to 23.7 billion yuan. Lens Technology is also reducing Apple's sales proportion. Its new energy vehicle business revenue will increase by 39.47% in 2023. Its customer list includes Tesla, BYD, Ideal, Weilai, etc. Resources are flowing from the uncertain Apple folding screen project to a track with more certainty and policy support.
Investment strategies have also shifted from specialized to general purpose.
In the past, suppliers would spend huge sums of money to build dedicated production lines for specific Apple products. For example, in 2021, Luxshare invested 11 billion yuan in Kunshan to build a super factory equivalent to the size of 40 football fields in order to compete for iPhone orders. Now, facing Apple’s folding screen project, the first principle for suppliers is to avoid repeating the mistakes of OFILM. They refuse to build production lines that only serve Apple, and require that the production lines must be compatible with the standards of customers such as Huawei and Xiaomi to prevent assets from being scrapped if orders change due to commercial or non-commercial reasons. They even began to require Apple to prepay for investment in production lines, subverting the traditional investment first and amortization after success model. This is equivalent to requiring Apple to pay a deposit for potential political cut-off risks.
Technology interactions similarly shift from transparency to retention.
"Nikkei Asia" reported an intriguing detail: Apple purchased domestically produced folding screens for disassembly, but was still unable to solve the crease problem. This is most likely a technology retention strategy. Take Huawei Mate X6 as an example. Its hinge patents have exceeded 2,850, and the crease depth is controlled to 0.08 mm, which is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye. China's supply chain already has the ability to achieve crease-free production, but in the face of Apple, they have the incentive to show that the technology is not feasible in the game.
The most fundamental changes occur at the negotiating table. In the past, suppliers accepted Apple's harsh terms in exchange for admission, including 90 to 120-day accounting periods, 5% annual price reduction requirements, and technology exclusivity. Now, they are beginning to demand a risk premium from OFILM: technical protection clauses signed in advance to prevent technology from being transferred to Indian or Vietnamese suppliers; a clear exit compensation mechanism to prevent being kicked out without reason or for political reasons; and a shorter accounting period. In short, the shift from cooperation first and then discussing money has become to insuring political risks first and then discussing business cooperation. If Apple does not agree, suppliers would rather give up the order than make unguaranteed excess investment. The annual reduction mechanism that Apple used to control costs and the threat of second suppliers to control technology are failing in the face of this new algorithm.
It has taken a month to collect all the evidence for this prosecution, and it is about to be submitted to the court. The lawyer said that the next step is to mediate first, and then wait in line for trial. There are so many cases like this now, so we can only wait in line. It is estimated that the wait will take two to three months, or even longer. Although the time and cost of defending rights were huge, Zhang Jiaming did not want to give up. He wanted to "set an example" through this lawsuit, until the lawyer told him that the actual user of this account was only a 13-year-old minor.
"I have no way to sue a child, but all the upfront costs have been invested." Zhang Jiaming said that this situation is not an exception. There are minors and people with weak legal awareness who just want to make a living by making these AI videos to earn traffic. “In the large number of cases where AI has been used to steal my voice, I have no idea how to do it in many cases.”
So far, he has spent a lot of time and energy on defending his rights, but due to various practical obstacles, not one case has been successfully prosecuted. Even if the rights protection is successful, the costs of infringement and rights protection are not equal at all. According to lawyers, even if the court verdict is won, the amount of compensation related to most infringement cases is not large, and the other party will use the excuse of lack of money to make it difficult for the court to enforce.
Zhang Jiaming concluded that one thing that many people who use AI infringement have in common is a weak legal awareness. He realized that many people have no concept of "authorizing the use of other people's voices." When communicating with the infringing bloggers, they asked them to take them off the shelves or use formal authorization. Instead, the other party said, "Why do you think this voice is yours?" They often hold the view that using the voice of a public figure does not constitute infringement as long as it does not break the law or cause malicious vilification.
[2] One character combines the voices of multiple actors, and infringers rely on "guerrilla warfare" to avoid reporting.
Full-time voice actor Xiaomu is also troubled by having his voice stolen by AI. She did not have a professional background, but due to her hobby, she plunged into the dubbing industry. She has dubbed for thousands of films, TV shows and vertical screen shorts. At most, she can record three or four dramas a day, and her income can be tens of thousands of yuan at the peak.
In February this year, she discovered for the first time that her voice had been "stolen." Someone posted a costume-themed audio in a voice actor group: the same character, her voice was used in the first two sentences, followed by another colleague's voice. It was obvious that many people's voices were merged into one character. It may be that the material obtained was not clean enough, and the sound source sounded a little distorted, but people who are familiar with her can tell it apart at a glance.
What shocked her even more was that not long after, her colleagues told her that her voice was in an AI live-action drama on the short video platform. She clicked on the second episode, and sure enough she heard her own voice appear: in a fusion splicing mode, the first few lines were hers, and the last few lines were someone else's. There may be hundreds or even thousands of voice actors' voices in one drama, and each character's voice is unstable.
When the platform generates AI dubbing, it also charges users, which is equivalent to using the voices of Xiaomu and other dubbing actors to make money without anyone's consent or even a greeting.
Then Xiaomu and other infringed voice actors wanted to defend their rights together, but after consulting a lawyer, they learned that the road to defending their rights was extremely difficult - not only did they have to record a large number of dry sounds for voiceprint identification, but different voice lines also had to be individually identified. The cost of pursuing liability was extremely high. Currently, there is no clear legislation on sound copyright protection at home and abroad.
The cunning infringers rely on "guerrilla warfare" to avoid infringement reports - they remove the infringing dramas to avoid the limelight, and within a few days they change their vest and launch a new AI drama, still stealing their voices.
[3] Under the impact of AI dubbing, some voice actors are delivering food, working as real estate agents, and selling used cars.
Voice actor Zhang Maimai believes that a good voice actor is often honed over time. For those who are new to the industry, a few years ago they might have relied on some audiobooks to exercise and support themselves, but now they have become dubbing comics and short plays. Under the impact of AI, the number of orders received by veteran voice actors like him has dropped sharply, not to mention how difficult it will be for newcomers to grow. What’s more serious is that AI has not only squeezed out most of the sinking market, but also stolen the unique and vital voices of actors.
Voice actor Zhang Mai's response. Picture/Screenshot of Tencent News
He remembered that AI began to appear after 2024. At that time, the technology was not as mature as it is now, but the number of orders received had begun to decrease significantly. From more than a dozen audition messages a day, there are only three to five, and the price has also been reduced. When he first encountered this situation, he was so anxious that he couldn't even sleep because of it, wondering if his abilities were too poor. But after a while, he could only look away and accept this "wave of the times". The technology itself was not at fault. "We are not resisting AI, we are resisting abuse and infringement."
Zhang Xiaomai believes that the voices produced by AI and the interpretations brought into the characters by voice actors are just like the difference between clothes cut out on the assembly line of online shopping and private customization. AI does not have a "soul".
Zhang Jiaming also believes that with the arrival of the AI era, voice actors have been squeezed out of their living space. However, he is also actively accepting and embracing AI, and cooperates with the AI production center on AI comics and other content. "The only thing we haven't been replaced now is that our voices still have a sense of living, breathing, and some fireworks. Maybe this is why everyone likes the dubbing of "Nezha"."
Xiaomu feels that AI can imitate the dubbing skills of voice actors with a high degree of similarity, but it is certainly not as flexible as real people in terms of detail processing and emotional changes.
But for many producers pursuing low cost, this is enough for now. She observed that, especially for newcomers, current AI incorporates the works of outstanding teachers in the industry. It is too difficult for newcomers to surpass these "copies". The cost of learning is high and the employment prospects are unclear, resulting in fewer and fewer fresh blood willing to enter the industry.
Many of Zhang Maimai’s students often tell him that they are under great pressure to survive after the number of orders they receive decreases. They are often full of enthusiasm for this industry. They only have an income of two to three thousand yuan in the early stage of entering the industry. In order to accumulate and improve themselves and look for greater opportunities, they basically accept orders from anyone who comes. Speaking from his personal experience, he only "made it out" after 10 years in the industry. During his time in Beijing, he basically recorded some minions, some small advertisements, and some street hawking in the recording studio.
He said that after many of his colleagues who used to dub together got married, their incomes dropped due to the impact of AI and they chose to change careers. Some people are delivering food, some are real estate agents, and some are selling cars.
[4] Experts say there are practical difficulties in determining AI imitation infringement and how to supervise it.
If the voice is "stolen" by AI, it not only infringes on the voice personality rights of the dubbing actor, but may also seriously damage the image of the IP. Zhang Jiaming said that there are still people who use AI to transform the images and dubbing of Taiyi Zhenren and Shen Gongbao to create vulgar and inappropriate content, and even make the characters say bad things such as swear words. Many minors like to imitate and learn. He is worried that such content will have a very bad guidance and negative impact on them.
In order to prevent his voice from being "stolen" by AI, Zhang Maimai adds an anti-counterfeiting mark to his voice every time he auditions. In addition to adding background music, he also adds a "beep, beep, beep" noise. "But this is also a way to guard against gentlemen and villains." Zhang Maimai said that the other party actually has a way to remove these watermarks, but it takes a little effort and time. Some people may think that cloning is too troublesome.
Regarding the legal boundaries of AI dubbing, according to CCTV News, many industry insiders and legal experts believe that in practice, there are currently practical problems in how to identify AI dubbing infringement and how to supervise it.
The first is that the evidence collection chain is weak. Most of the AI voices spread on the Internet are fragmented and secondary processed, making it difficult to trace the source and fix the complete infringement link.
Another difficulty is the difficulty of “identification”. Sounds can be easily edited, tampered with, and changed in speed. AI can fine-tune timbre, intonation, etc. to achieve a high degree of similarity, and can even pinch the voiceprints of several people together. It is very difficult to defend rights from a technical level.
Zhao Zhanhan, a special researcher at the Intellectual Property Center of China University of Political Science and Law, said that industry self-discipline and platform rules are also an important part of building a compliance ecosystem. In the absence of regulatory policies, network platforms and AI software platforms can prohibit users from using other people's voices to generate AI without authorization.
However, how to embed watermarks in AI sounds still requires unified and standardized technical standards. In addition, high-quality and commercially valuable voice actors can register their voices and voiceprints separately for better accountability in the future. With the gradual improvement of the supervision system, labeling system and evidence collection system, an effective protection mechanism for the voice of dubbing actors can also be quickly established.
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