Instant retail battle escalates as Alibaba's Taotian joins the fray; Xiaomi enters the large model arena | Recap of today's important news

0430 | Dolphin Research Key Focus:

🐬 Macro/Industry

1. Affected by drastic changes in the external environment, China's April manufacturing PMI declined. The official manufacturing PMI for April dropped to 49, down 1.5 percentage points from the previous month, indicating a slowdown in manufacturing activity. The official non-manufacturing PMI for April was 50.4, down 0.4 percentage points, remaining above the expansion threshold.

2. U.S. President Trump signed two executive orders to mitigate the impact of tariffs on the automotive industry: one temporarily suspends tariffs on aluminum and steel for imported cars, while the other allows partial compensation for automakers assembling cars in the U.S. using imported parts. Recent widespread opposition to the government's tariff policies has increased pressure, and these adjustments aim to alleviate the impact and appease automakers.

🐬 Stocks

1.$MEITUAN(03690.HK)

The battle between Meituan and JD.com intensifies as Ele.me announced increased platform subsidies, launching a high-profile "100 Billion Subsidy" promotion. JD.com had already rolled out its 100 Billion Subsidy campaign on April 11, coupled with discounts on popular products. Meituan Takeaway has also been aggressive, steadily capturing market share. Ele.me's move has further heated up the competition, causing short-term declines for both Meituan and JD.com today.

2.$BABA-W(09988.HK)

Alibaba upgraded its instant retail service "Hourly Delivery" under Taobao to "Flash Purchase," featuring it as a top-tier entry on the app homepage. Ele.me's supply is now fully integrated with Taobao Flash Purchase, with an interface strikingly similar to JD.com's "Instant Delivery." Ele.me's 100 Billion Subsidy will also be jointly promoted with Taobao Flash Purchase, putting additional pressure on Meituan.

3.$XIAOMI-W(01810.HK)

Xiaomi open-sourced its first "inference-first" large model, "Xiaomi MiMo," linking pre-training to post-training to enhance reasoning capabilities. Xiaomi's approach focuses on "small parameters, high performance, inference priority"—with just 7B parameters, it outperforms OpenAI's o1-mini and Alibaba's Qwen-32B-Preview (coincidentally, Qwen3 was open-sourced just days ago). This marks a significant step in Xiaomi's AI technology, expanding possibilities for its voice assistant, Xiao Ai. Xiaomi's stock rose over 5% today.

4. Key Earnings Reports and Conference Calls

Luckin Coffee: "Not Content as a Miser, Luckin Stirs Again?", "Luckin (Minutes): Management Remains Cautious on Profit Outlook"

Kweichow Moutai: "Kweichow Moutai: Left Hand Non-Standard Liquor, Right Hand Series Liquor—Fearless of Feitian Slowdown?"

Coca-Cola: "Coca-Cola: The Stronger the Tariffs, the Pricier the 'Happy Fat Water'?", "Coca-Cola (Minutes): 25Q2 May Face High Base Pressure"

China Tourism Group Duty Free: "Worst Days Over? Can China Tourism Group Duty Free Turn Bitter to Sweet?"

🐬 Top Gainers

A-shares: Data Processing & Outsourcing, Apparel Retailers, Commercial Printing;

Hong Kong: Cloud & Data Centers, Electronics Retailers, Hardware Storage & Peripherals;

U.S.: Marine Ports-Operators, Industrial Conglomerates, Security & Alarm Services.

🐬 Tomorrow's Watchlist

1. U.S. Challenger Job Cuts, Initial Jobless Claims, S&P Global Manufacturing PMI Final, ISM Manufacturing PMI, Construction Spending MoM.

2. Microsoft, Meta, Qualcomm, Robinhood, Roblox earnings releases—Dolphin Research will track and analyze.

3. Labor Day holiday: HKEX closed May 1, resumes May 2 (Friday), closed May 3–5.

Risk Disclosure & Disclaimer: Dolphin Research Disclaimer