Author : zebethcontrol

Integration platform Cinchy lands fresh cash to connect data sources • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Apps, data integration, Enterprise, funding, startup, StartupsNo Comments

Cinchy, a startup that provides a data management service for enterprise customers, today announced that it raised $14.5 million in Series B funding led by Forgepoint Capital with participation from IVP, SUV, Techstars and Mars. Bringing the company’s total raised to $24 million, the capital will be put toward scaling Cinchy’s outreach and continuing to invest in the startup’s core technology, CEO Dan DeMers told ZebethMedia in an interview. “Data management remains an expensive chore, and a proliferation of apps producing an ever-increasing volume of data only adds to the challenge. As a result, rather than being a business driver or competitive advantage, data is more often a drain on IT budgets and a nightmare for compliance teams,” DeMers said. “The Cinchy platform addresses many of the challenges associated with today’s IT environments, specifically those defined by data silos, data copies and complex code.” DeMers co-founded Cinchy with Karanjot Jaswal in 2017 with the ambitious goal of abstracting away data integration processes. DeMers was previously the director of prime finance and futures technology at Citi, where he built and managed a tech delivery and support services group for brokerage. Jaswal was also at Citi, working on the data warehouse team on risk and margin. Both DeMers and Jasawal perceived that companies were struggling to overcome data integration hurdles. To their point, in a recent IBM survey, 40% of IT leaders said their data integrations are getting too expensive while 19% believe their current data integration solutions can’t handle all data sources. “The existing app- and API-centric architecture requires individual apps to manage their own data, and this means every new app or API adds yet another data silo,” DeMers said. “It’s like a tax on innovation that only gets worse with every new solution that’s delivered.” Cinchy aims to solve this by enabling organizations to decouple data from apps and other silos by connecting them to a “network-based” platform. Project teams first connect data from core systems, software-as-a-service apps and spreadsheets to the platform — Cinchy handles things like data backup, data versioning and data engagement tracking without actually hosting the data. Admins can access the platform to view, edit or query data for individuals and teams. Other users with the right permissions can engage with the data to build data models. Image Credits: Cinchy Cinchy uses the platform itself to run its business. Employees have self-serve access to discover, query, create and change data, DeMers says. Changes to data are version-controlled, access-controlled and available to apps and users based on granular controls. “Anyone who’s experienced the collaboration and efficiency of collaboration tools like Google Drive and Docs will understand the significance of bringing those capabilities to organizational data,” DeMers said. “The outcomes in terms of speed, efficiency, control and creative problem-solving are staggering.” DeMers sees Cinchy competing with any vendor that promises to simplify data integration. There’s a fair number out there, including Equalum, Airbyte, Hevo Data and Jitsu — all chasing after a market that could be worth $22.28 billion by 2027. Demand for data integrations solutions certainly appears high, with a 2020 survey from Dresner Advisory Services finding that 67% of enterprises were relying on data integration to support analytics and business intelligence platforms and that 24% were planning to in the next 12 months. But DeMers argues that most are focused on workarounds to better deal with data fragmentation, particularly in the context of analytics. “Most products that may be seen to be competing with Cinchy are in fact only exacerbating the challenges to agility and compliance associated with data integration,” he said. Rivals no doubt disagree. It’s true, though, that Cinchy has a growing customer base, particularly in the financial industry — suggesting that it’s winning over businesses. Adopters span institutions like TD Bank, National Bank and Natixis; Cinchy recently launched a credit union edition of the platform to better serve financial institutions. “Organizations everywhere are looking for ways to save money while continuing to capitalize on market opportunities with new solutions. This is why we’re confident that the Cinchy platform will increasingly appeal to chief experience officers and team leaders tasked with bridging these priorities,” DeMers said. “Cinchy … enables organizations to liberate their data from applications, spreadsheets, and other silos and make it [available] for real-time collaboration whenever and wherever it’s needed.” Toronto-based Cinchy, which has just over 50 employees, is currently hiring.

Accel backs startup offering ‘Amazon-grade’ commerce engine to online sellers around the world • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Accel, Amazon, Commerce, eCommerceNo Comments

Accel has backed a startup named Mason based in India and the U.S. that has built a commerce engine for sellers around the world to help them sell products online without paying the exorbitant ‘Amazon tax.’ The California-based startup, which has its R&D headquarters in Bengaluru, is claimed to allow sellers to have their D2C storefront ready with a 50% uplift in their margins from day one. It offers a no-code, plug-and-play solution to let sellers offer products online without requiring a large engineering team. Founded by Barada Sahu and Kausambi Manjita in 2020, Mason claims to have more than 1,000 customers and powers over 8,000 brands worldwide. While North America has been one of the strongest markets for the startup, it also serves clients in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Japan and India. “People are stuck with having forced to sell on Amazon. Ideally, as a brand, you want your own presence, but you’re unable to do that because it’s very hard. It almost feels like a technology problem,” Manjita said in an interview with ZebethMedia. Mason’s product dashboard Sahu and Manjita decided to build their offering for online stores while working at Walmart-owned Myntra. While developing a custom engine at the fashion e-commerce company, the duo realized the need for bespoke store engines to run online stores selling various products successfully. That brought Mason to its reality. Manjita is heading Mason’s product and customer experience, while Sahu looks after its revenues and growth. The startup is aimed at small and medium businesses that already sell products online but are looking to upgrade their stores. Although Amazon can help in such cases, Sahu and Manjita say the commission charged by the e-commerce giant restricts entrepreneurs’ earnings. Manson charges 1% of its customers’ total sales to offer its platform. But it is significantly less than the 30% charge Amazon puts on every sale through its platform, Sahu said. By switching to Mason, Manjita said that a store improves average order value by 23% in 30 days and improves its session time by 17% and sell-through by 35% in 60 days. In addition to its flagship commerce engine, Mason offers a Shopify plugin called ModeMagic. It is designed for brands getting started and basically deep diving into the Shopify ecosystem, Sahu said. By offering its standalone platform and Shopify plugin, the startup essentially wants to cater to both types of entrepreneurs and businesses — the ones that are not relying on a particular platform and the others that use Shopify as their backend. Mason has raised a total of $7.5 million in a seed round led by Accel and Ideaspring Capital, with participation from Lightspeed India Partners as well as Mana VC, Gaingels, Core91 and VH Capital. “In order to build a truly scalable outcome, the team is on the journey to create a self-serve platform wherein e-commerce brand owners could use it to create, communicate and grow,” said Subrata Mitra, Partner at Accel, in a prepared statement. Manjita said that Mason will utilize the fresh funding to set up its marketing, sales, customer success and partnerships teams — to bring the product to more and more customers. The startup also plans to create better and more content for entrepreneurs to help them learn about solving challenges in their e-commerce journey. Mason currently has around 40 people in its team, including close to 30 working toward product technology and design operations. A large part of its workforce is based out of Bengaluru, though it has its early go-to-market teams in Toronto and advisors in San Diego and New York. It is also setting up its customer success, early marketing and growth and partnerships teams in North America.

UK government denies fresh delay to Online Safety Bill will derail it • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in digital regulation, Government & Policy, Michelle Donelan, online child safety, Online Safety BillNo Comments

The UK government has denied a fresh parliamentary delay to the Online Safety Bill will delay the legislation’s passage. The legislation is a core plank of the government’s 2019 manifesto promise to make the UK the safest place in the world to go online, introducing a regime ministers want to will drive a new era of accountability over the content that online platforms make available. PoliticsHome spotted the change to the House of Commons schedule last night, reporting that the bill had been dropped from the Commons business for the second time in four months — despite a recent pledge by secretary of state for digital, Michelle Donelan, that it would return in the autumn. The earlier ‘pause’ in the bill’s progress followed the ousting of ex-(ex)prime minister Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader over the summer which was followed by a lengthy leadership contest. Prime minister Liz Truss, who prevailed in the contest to replace Johnson as PM (but is now also an ex-PM), quickly put the brakes on the draft legislation over concerns about its impact on freedom of speech — the area that’s attracted the most controversy for the government. Then, last month, Donelan confirmed provisions in the bill dealing with ‘legal but harmful speech would be changed. A source in the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) told ZebethMedia that the latest delay to the bill’s parliamentary timetable is to allow time for MPs to read these new amendments — which they also confirmed are yet to be laid. But they suggested the delay will not affect the passage of the bill, saying it will progress within the next few weeks. They added that the legislation remains a top priority for the government. A DCMS spokesperson also provided this statement in response to questions about the fresh delay and incoming amendments: “Protecting children and stamping out illegal activity online is a top priority for the government and we will bring the Online Safety Bill back to Parliament as soon as possible.” The government is now being led by another new prime minister — Rishi Sunak — who took over from Truss after she resigned earlier this month, following the market’s disastrous reception to her economic reforms. The change of PM may not mean major differences in policy approach in the arena of online regulation as Sunak has expressed similar concerns about the Online Safety Bill’s impact on free speech — also seemingly centered on clauses pertaining to restrictions on the ‘legal but harmful’ speech of adults. In August, The Telegraph reported a spokesman for Sunak (who was then just a leadership candidate) saying: “Rishi has spoken passionately as a dad about his desire to protect children online from content no parent would want their children to see – from violence, self harm and suicide to pornography. “As Prime Minister he would urgently legislate to protect children. His concern with the bill as drafted is that it censors free speech amongst adults which he does not support. Rishi believes the Government has a duty to protect children and crack down on illegal behaviour, but should not infringe on legal and free speech.” However, it remains to be seen how exactly the bill will be amended under Sunak’s watch. Delays as amendments are considered and introduced could still threaten the bill’s passage if it ends up running out of parliamentary time to go through all the required stages of scrutiny. Parliamentary sessions typically run from spring to spring. While there are only around two years left before Sunak will have to call a general election. So the clock is ticking. The Online Safety Bill has already been years in the making, swelling in scope and ambition via a grab-bag of add-ons and late stage additions — from bringing scam ads into the regulation to measures aimed at tackling anonymous trolling, to name two of many. Critics like the digital rights group the ORG argue the bill is hopelessly cluttered, fuzzily drafted and legally incoherent — warning it will usher in a chilling regime of speech policing by private companies and the tone-deaf automated algorithms they will be forced to deploy to shrink their legal risk. There are also concerns about how the legislation might affect end-to-end encryption if secure messaging platforms are also forced to monitor content — with the potential for it to lead to the adoption of controversial technologies like client-side scanning. While the administrative burden and costs of compliance will undoubtedly saddle scores of digital businesses with lots of headaches. Despite having no shortage of critics, the bill has plenty of supporters too, though — including the opposition Labour party, which offered to work with the government to get the bill passed. Children’s safety campaigners and charities have also been loudly urging lawmakers to get on and pass legislation to protect kids online. The recent inquest into the suicide of British schoolgirl, Molly Russell — who was found to have binge-consumed (and been algorithmically fed) content about depression and self harm on social media platforms including Instagram and Pinterest before she killed herself — has added further impetus to safety campaigners’ cause. The coroner concluded that that “negative effects of online content” were a factor in Russell’s death. His report also urged the government to regulate the sector.

YouTube opens up certification program for health-related channels • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Apps, Biotech & Health, certification, Health, misinformation, YouTubeNo Comments

YouTube announced today that it will certify channels of licensed health professionals like doctors, nurses, or therapists who produce health-related content. Last year, the company introduced a label noting that the info on the channel is from a certified healthcare professional. Plus, it showed videos from these approved channels in a new carousel called “From health sources” that shows up atop search results. While these features were available to select institutions like educational institutions, public health departments, hospitals, and government entities at launch, the company is now expanding the program and inviting U.S-based health creators to apply for this program. Image Credits: YouTube YouTube follows guidelines set by the Council of Medical Specialty Societies, the National Academy of Medicine and the World Health Organization to build a framework around credible sources for health-related content on the platform. All institutions and health-related creators need to follow these rules while making videos on YouTube. The streaming platform has set a bunch of requirements for creators applying for this certification: they should primarily have health content on the channel; they must have more than 2,000 watch hours of public videos in the last 12 months; and they must attest that they are a licensed doctor, nurse or mental health professional. YouTube will review the channel against its guidelines and it will also check with authorities to verify that applicants have a valid medical license. Once the channels are approved, they will get a special label noting them as “a licensed healthcare professional” resource, and their videos will also surface on health content shelves on top of related search results. YouTube said that this covers search results in most conditions apart from rare diseases (it didn’t specify which ones). The caveat is that if a creator makes a video that’s not directly related to healthcare, the channel still retains the label and the video might also show up on the health content shelf if the creator uses keywords related to a medical condition. In a call with ZebethMedia, Dr. Garth Graham, Global Head of YouTube Health, said that the onus of making health-related videos lies on the creator. However, the company doesn’t provide any toggle if they want to demark an unrelated video. Notably, YouTube launched a program last month that surfaces personal stories from patients or their relatives in a separate panel when users search for ailments cancer, and mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. But there is a chance that a health creator’s personal story might show up in the health resources panel rather than the personal stories panel. Image Credits: YouTube There is also a concern about certified health-related channels spreading misinformation. Dr. Graham insisted that the company uses a combination of processes (AI) and people (reviewers) to measure them against YouTube’s guidelines. “If a channel that is eligible for these features receives a Community Guidelines strike or has content removed for violating our policies, they will lose their eligibility. Channels can reapply in 90 days if the Community Guidelines issues have been resolved. This is similar to how our YouTube Partner Program works, which many creators are familiar with,” he said. The company also reviews these channels annually to ensure that it is following YouTube’s rules for health-related content and remove them from the program if necessary. Apart from the U.S., YouTube is also opening up the application process for healthcare institutions and individuals in Germany. Users in that region will start seeing healthcare certification labels and the health content carousel early next year once the first set of channels is approved.

Lightspeed-backed Indian commerce Udaan raises $120 million • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Commerce, india, UdaanNo Comments

Indian business-to-business e-commerce startup Udaan has raised $120 million in convertible notes and debt led by existing shareholders and bondholders, a top executive told employees in an email Thursday seen by ZebethMedia, as the company readies being public in 12-18 months. (More to follow)

Dispute between founders and board leaves Capiter in arrears to employees and creditors • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in B2B e-commerce platform, Capiter, StartupsNo Comments

Last month, Egyptian B2B e-commerce platform Capiter made headlines after founders Mahmoud Nouh and Ahmed Nouh were ousted by its board as CEO and COO. The reasons were unclear, as both parties didn’t publicly comment on the situation; however, from various local news outlets, they ranged from mismanagement of funds to failure to report to the board and work out a potential merger, as well as internal disagreements over management methods. In a statement issued to ZebethMedia last month, Capiter’s board said claims of theft of the company’s assets by the founders are untrue and it didn’t move to remove the founders due to suspicion of theft or fraud. “Rather, this course of action was undertaken after the founders abdicated their responsibilities, failed to enact Board-approved corporate actions, and began to actively subvert the abilities of the company to stabilize its financial and operational affairs. After that juncture, it became necessary to appoint an interim CEO (the company’s chief financial officer Majid El Ghazouli) to manage the operational and financial affairs of the company.” When the news broke, the axed CEO Mahmoud Nouh denied the allegations when ZebethMedia reached out and said he and his brother Ahmed didn’t receive official notice of their dismissal. But in an unexpected twist, the founders, in a statement to ZebethMedia, are accusing the board of spreading “false and untrue allegations” that question their reputation. Last week, Nouh took to LinkedIn to describe his account of the whole drama. Meanwhile, the statements received from Capiter’s board and founders involve a lot of finger-pointing, leaving Capiter’s employees more confused than they currently are about their current situation. Many of these employees, clueless about the company’s direction, are yet to receive their August salaries and severance packages. Some have expressed their displeasure on LinkedIn (you can find other posts here and here). While about 50% of August salaries have been paid, a few employees who spoke with ZebethMedia on the condition of anonymity said the board has yet to communicate any timeline or dates for outstanding salaries, leaving them stranded. “The Board told us they are following legal procedures to finalize whatever is going on before they pay us. Also, suppliers and creditors are calling some of us asking for their money, which should be the company’s responsibility, not ours,” one said, adding that many of them haven’t moved on to new opportunities, as they are yet to be officially released from their duties at Capiter. Founders versus investors Last September, Capiter raised $33 million in Series A funding to compete in the country’s growing B2B e-commerce and retail space. It was one of the largest of that stage, and things seemed to be going well with the company until it laid off multiple employees between June and July, citing global macroeconomic trends. But various sources say the company’s issues were more inward than outward, as they described Capiter as a workplace with poor management, no structure and a business with a high burn rate. The company had planned to raise a follow-on round to address its struggles but met a challenging fundraising environment. What ensued after this led to the current spat between founders and investors. According to sources, Capiter’s investors wanted to sell the company to Retailio, a similar player based in Saudi Arabia, but the founders refused; they wanted existing investors to inject more capital into Capiter. A source close to the company confirmed this to ZebethMedia. “It is true that in the last nine months, the company has received inbound interest from multiple players in Egypt and neighboring countries because of the incredible business that Capiter built,” the person said. “During that same period, investors infused millions of dollars of capital in two tranches (over and above the Series A that was raised last year) based on the progress of these conversations and the traction of the business. Though the events of the last couple of weeks have disrupted these efforts, there are still active M&A discussions underway currently.” The board claims that Capiter founders departed Egypt during these discussions around September 1. By doing so, they ceased to resolve the company’s operational and financial situation. They also argued that the founders blocked email access for key employees and restricted the viewing and transacting ability for important bank accounts. “These actions undermined efforts to stabilize the company, most notably its ability to negotiate with creditors, pay employees and realize a potential consolidation,” the board expressed in its statement. The board said it funded Capiter with sufficient capital to pay August salaries and directed the founders to effect these payments. They claimed that the founders unilaterally and without approval redirected most of this capital to lower-priority creditors and the now blocked bank accounts. According to the board, any liabilities for outstanding salaries and employment benefits rest with the Nouh brothers and Capiter Egypt, where the board is composed solely of the two founders. Yes, you read that right: The major investors which include Quona Capital and MSA Capital, say they hold board seats at Capiter Technologies Holding Ltd., the holding company initially based in Mauritius and now in Abu Dhabi. In contrast, Capiter Egypt has only two board members: the Nouh brothers. Thus, all of the liabilities currently under investigation sit entirely at Capiter Egypt, where Capiter Technologies Holding Ltd. doesn’t hold any managerial rights or signatory powers. Now, here’s where it gets interesting. On September 5, Capiter’s board appointed new management, with El Ghazouli as interim CEO. The Nouh brothers, in their statement, said the board did not commence any official procedures or formality to dismiss them and strike their names off the official records of Capiter “to the best of their knowledge.” In response, the board claims that because the two founders are sole managers, signatories and legal representatives of Capiter Egypt, any efforts to effect a change of control must follow due process and could take up to 60 days, per the guidance of Egyptian legal counsel. The board said

Samsung names Jay Y Lee executive chairman amid global economic downturn • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Enterprise, Jay Y. Lee, Samsung, south koreaNo Comments

Samsung Electronics has appointed Jay Y. Lee as the executive chairman to lead the world’s largest smartphone and memory chipmaker, two months after the heir received a presidential pardon that erased the 54-year-old’s criminal record. Lee, who has been vice chairman of Samsung since 2012, had been expected to take over the tech giant after the death of his father Kun-hee Lee, the late Samsung Group chairman, in 2020. In August, Lee received a special presidential pardon, which allowed Lee to officially participate in the management, restoring his right to work at Samsung and accelerating its decision-making on major strategies from chipmaking to investment plans. The long-anticipated appointment comes amid shrinking global demand for chips and smartphones and market uncertainty driven by the economic downturn. “The Board cited the current uncertain global business environment and the pressing need for stronger accountability and business stability in approving the recommendation,” Samsung said in a statement. South Korea’s largest memory chip maker said today its operating profit for the third quarter tumbled 31.39% from the year-ago period to 10.85 trillion KRW ($7.7 billion). Earnings in its memory chip and the System large-scale integration (LSI) businesses dropped to 5.12 trillion KRW, from 10.07 trillion KRW a year earlier, due to weak demand for consumer products, mobile phones and TVs, according to the company. This is Samsung’s first year-on-year drop in profit since 2019. Samsung reported sales of 76.78 trillion KRW (~$54 billion) in the three months ending September, representing a 3.79% rise from the year-ago quarter. The company expects demands for electronic devices and chips to cover to some extent in 2023 though macroeconomic uncertainties are likely to persist. “In the memory business, after a dampened first half, demand is expected to rebound centering on servers as data center installations resume,” the company said in its statement. The downbeat earnings come nearly three weeks after the Biden administration announced sweeping new rules aimed at blocking China from gaining access to advanced chip items. The restrictions prevent exporting certain semiconductors and selling equipment using advanced technologies to China-based chipmakers. Leading global semiconductor makers, including Samsung Electronics, TSMC, and SK Hynix have been granted one-year permission to use U.S. technology for selling advanced semiconductor chips for supercomputers and artificial intelligence to Chinese firms. SK Hynix, which competes with Samsung in the memory chip sector, said Wednesday it plans to slash its capital expenditure in 2023 by more than 50 percent after reporting a 60% drop in its profits in 3Q. Samsung sells NAND and DRAM chips used in laptops, smartphones and data storage. The tech behemoth said earlier this month it plans to more than triple producing advanced chips for high-performance computers, artificial intelligence, 5G and 6G telco and automotive. Samsung aims to start manufacturing 2-nanometer chips by 2025 and 1.4-nanometer chips by 2027.

Human Impact Capital is a new $50M fund investing in social impact startups • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in EnjoyVenture, Germany, Redstone, social impact, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

Redstone and EnjoyVenture have combined forces to create Human Impact Capital (HIC), Germany’s first dedicated scial impact VC fund. The fund will deploy cash into digital business models focusing on health, education and “living,” and explicitly invests to have an impact along sustainable development goals. To HIC, this means “No Poverty, Good Health and Wellbeing, Quality Education, Gender Equality and Reduced Inequalities.” I spoke with the fund’s manager, Lucas Paul, to find out what drove the creation of the fund and its investment thesis. “We are convinced that innovation is key to overcoming the biggest social challenges of our time, and we are dedicated to contributing to a better future and supporting innovation through investments in social impact startups,” said Paul in an interview with ZebethMedia. “Entrepreneurs providing solutions to these social problems will advance our society and lay the foundation for the generations to come. While impact VC investments are on the rise, 75% of those flow into environmental topics.” For the initial closing, the fund decided to partner with strategic anchor investors having strong ties to the social sector. Among others, the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft, Germany’s leading bank for the social sector, committed substantially to HIC, fund reps told me. The fund aims to invest in digital business models that tackle society’s biggest challenges, typically investing between €500,000 and €1.5 million. The firm focuses on early-stage startups in Europe, and reserves more than 60% of its commitments to follow-on investments. “We firmly believe that economic profit and positive impact mutually reinforce each other and will accelerate at scale. We’d like to prove this fundamental belief and show that we’re able to generate above-average returns for our investors while maximizing the social impact of our investments,” Paul said. “Ideally, this concept is proven and widely accepted 10 years from now, which would make the world a better place.” One of the areas where the firm believes it can have an impact, and where it is actively seeking to invest, is in technologies that make aging smoother. “One element that is a common characteristic of all Western society is an aging population. Access to this growing target group is crucial today and will become even more important in the future. The challenge needs to be faced now. We currently do not see a lot of models that have solved the problem of accessing this group and of including them in an ever-changing jungle of digital solutions,” said Paul. “Most digital startups simply ignore people older than 50 within their target group and are missing out on enormous revenue potential while the quality of life of the elderly stagnates. We’d like to see more ambitious founding teams working on solutions for the elderly to ensure health care, to protect the aging population while limiting loneliness.”

China’s smartphone shipments slumped 23% in Jan-Aug • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Apple, China, chips, Gadgets, Hardware, Huawei, iPhone, oppo, Phone, semiconductors, shipment, XiaomiNo Comments

Smartphone shipment is often seen as the bellwether of China’s consumer spending, and right now, the picture isn’t very rosy. The world’s largest market for smartphones shipped 175.1 million handsets between January and August, marking a sharp 22.9% decline year-over-year, according to research from a state-backed institution. In August alone, shipments dropped 21.9% year-over-year. The global smartphone market as a whole is experiencing a slowdown, logging a 9% decline in the second quarter due to a mix of challenges including a COVID-struck economy, inflation, and deceleration following years of frantic growth. China’s growing consumer appetite obviously played a big part in driving the boom, and now that the world’s second-largest economy is hitting a speed bump, the smartphone industry is inevitably taking a hit. The era of economic miracles is coming to a close in China. On Monday, official data reported a 3.9% GDP growth rate from July to September, which beat forecasts but was way below the double digits that propelled the country’s economy forward for three decades. China is not only the world’s largest market for hanset users but is also its largest phone producer, with home-grown brands like Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi rising over the years to rival Apple and Samsung. These domestic phone markers began seeking overseas expansion well before their home market start cooling down. And they’ve successfully carved out their international market share and have in recent years consistently shared the top five spots alongside Apple and Samsung. The smartphone industry is notoriously cut-throat with modest margins, so it wasn’t unsurprising when Xiaomi and Oppo, which are long known for selling budget phones, started offering higher-end models in recent years. Huawei established a strong presence in the premium handset space before the U.S. cut off its supply of critical chipsets and key Android services. Having seen how overdependence on advanced U.S. technologies and geopolitical tensions has wrecked Huawei’s revenues, Oppo and the likes are rushing to work on their own smartphone processors. The need for Chinese firms to have their own high-end chips is getting dire as the Biden administration hit China with possibly the strictest export controls earlier this month. Analysts are still parsing the impact of the policy, but initial observation shows that the new rules will not only restrict Chinese companies’ access to high-end U.S. chips but will also bar their access to chip-making equipment, which will hobble the country’s ability to develop such advanced technologies.