Authorities have outlined regulatory boundaries for subsidy competitions in the food delivery sector. On February 5th, a press conference was held by the State Council Information Office. Zhu Jianqiao, Director of the Online Transaction Supervision Department of the State Administration for Market Regulation, stated that in response to issues such as disputes and subsidy wars disrupting market competition order since last year, the administration has intensified research and guidance for major food delivery platforms, conducted timely administrative interviews, and set clear regulatory red lines to promote standardized promotions, rational competition, and lawful operations. Moving forward, the administration will continue to enhance the supervision of the platform economy by reinforcing platform responsibilities, improving regulatory mechanisms, strengthening enforcement, and accelerating intelligent capabilities. It will employ measures such as listing for supervision, elevating jurisdiction, and designating jurisdiction to investigate and publicize typical cases of online transactions, further standardizing online trading behavior, maintaining fair competition, and enabling the platform economy to play a greater role in serving high-quality development.
The subsidy wars in the food delivery industry last year were highly contentious, impacting merchants, delivery personnel, and consumers. Exchanging subsidies for user growth is a common practice in the internet sector, similar to recent red envelope distributions by AI applications. In theory, competition among merchants benefits consumers. However, last year, leading platforms competed aggressively by offering free meals, which overwhelmed merchants and delivery personnel, leading to difficulties for users in receiving orders on time, ultimately harming the industry's long-term health. The intervention by market regulators aims to foster healthy competition and protect the interests of all parties. The platform economy has become a highly dynamic component of China's economic development. As the regulatory framework becomes clearer, compliance is no longer just a cost but a key competitive advantage for enterprises.
Reports indicate that numerous real estate developers have recently disclosed their 2025 data on ensuring housing delivery, suggesting these efforts are nearing completion. By the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, approximately 7.5 million previously sold but hard-to-deliver housing units have been successfully delivered nationwide. Country Garden delivered around 1.85 million units, while Greenland, Sunac, Zhongnan Group, Seazen, and CIFI each delivered hundreds of thousands of units, effectively alleviating the nationwide issue of difficult housing deliveries. According to data released on the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development's website in November 2025, 3.918 million units, or 99%, of the 3.96 million units targeted in the key campaign have been delivered. Concurrently, approved loans for projects on the national "whitelist" have exceeded 7 trillion yuan, providing strong financial support for project construction and delivery.
Ensuring housing delivery is a crucial prerequisite for stabilizing the property market, directly impacting urgent livelihood concerns. The central bank previously established special loan quotas to support projects involving hard-to-deliver sold homes, with local governments coordinating to ensure fund allocation. Currently, the issue of difficult deliveries by developers is largely resolved, effectively containing the risk of real estate debt spreading to households and society and preventing a systemic crisis. For developers, this represents surviving the most challenging period. Stabilizing the property market is a systematic project. With the completion of the delivery task, the market is set to enter a phase of steady recovery. Unlike previous expansion-focused phases, the industry is now entering a new era of standardized development. The ability to revitalize existing assets and create superior housing products may become key determinants of success for developers.
On February 5th, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2025 Hurun China 500," ranking the top 500 non-state-owned Chinese companies by enterprise value. TSMC's value increased by 3.5 trillion yuan, reclaiming the top spot as China's most valuable private enterprise with a value of 10.5 trillion yuan. Tencent's value grew by 1.9 trillion yuan, securing second place with 5.3 trillion yuan. ByteDance's value rose by 1.8 trillion yuan, maintaining third place with 3.4 trillion yuan. The threshold for entry into the 2025 list increased by 75 billion yuan to 340 billion yuan, a 28% rise. The total value of the 500 companies grew by 21 trillion yuan (38%) to 77 trillion yuan. Among the listed companies, 386 saw their value increase compared to the previous year, including 95 new entrants, while 102 companies experienced a decline in value. Four sectors—semiconductors, media and entertainment, industrial products, and consumer goods—accounted for half of the total value of the Hurun China 500.
Despite a challenging macro environment in 2025, China's leading private enterprises achieved rapid development, with both the total value and the entry threshold for the top 500 rising. The value increases for the top three companies are somewhat linked to the AI industry. TSMC's foundries operated at full capacity due to massive order demand, Tencent made steady progress in its AI布局, and ByteDance made significant strides in AI applications with its Doubao model. Xiaomi's initial success in the automotive sector made it a new entrant in this year's top ten. The leading effect among China's private enterprises is pronounced, with the top ten becoming increasingly stable in recent years. However, significant changes in the overall list reflect China's industrial transition towards high-end manufacturing. It is noteworthy that many companies on this list are not publicly traded, potentially leading to valuation inaccuracies and possible undervaluation of some enterprises.
On February 5th, the China Internet Network Information Center's Policy and International Cooperation Institute released the 57th Statistical Report on China's Internet Development. The report indicates that as of December 2025, the user base for generative artificial intelligence reached 602 million people, a 141.7% increase from the end of 2024. The penetration rate reached 42.8%, a significant increase of 25.2 percentage points year-on-year. The report also shows that as of December 2025, the number of internet users in China reached 1.125 billion, with internet penetration exceeding 80%, demonstrating that digital development benefits a broader population. Regarding mobile networks, China has built 4.838 million 5G base stations, with 5G coverage extending to all townships and 95% of administrative villages. 5G-Advanced networks have covered over 330 cities.
Generative AI has broken into the mass market, with its user base nearly doubling last year, now accounting for over half of the total internet user population. The emergence of open-source models, represented by Deepseek, has significantly reduced the cost for enterprises to acquire the technology. A wave of products responsive to user needs has emerged densely in practical fields like copywriting, image creation, and code generation. However, as the quality of AI-generated content remains unstable and training and inference costs are high, users primarily employ it for simple, fragmented tasks. Willingness to use it deeply or subscribe to high-value services remains limited. The rapid user growth indicates significant commercial potential for AI. The market has shifted from pure technological competition to a contest of practical user experience, with major vendors actively launching AI agents to capture user mindshare. Achieving a commercial闭环 may find a direct breakthrough point in addressing specific demands within vertical sectors.
A team under Elon Musk recently visited China to survey the photovoltaic industry chain. Companies such as GCL Group, Jinko Solar, TCL Zhonghuan, and Gaoce Stock confirmed contact with the media. However, Jingsheng Mechanical & Electrical, Shuangliang Energy Saving, and Jinko Solar issued unusual fluctuation announcements after market close to highlight associated risks. Industry insiders in heterojunction technology indicated that the US photovoltaic industry currently lags behind China in areas from upstream silicon materials and equipment to finished products, requiring subsequent production capacity ramp-up. In the early stages of Musk's photovoltaic production, battery companies might need to assist with validation processes. Musk recently expressed strong support for space-based solar power at the Davos Forum and disclosed key capacity plans, with SpaceX and Tesla aiming to achieve an annual solar manufacturing capacity of 100 GW within the next three years.
Musk's team's visit to survey China's PV产业链 is likely for preliminary industry research, and whether it leads to future cooperation remains uncertain. China's photovoltaic industry chain has established a leading global advantage in both scale and technology. It is a normal practice for SpaceX and Tesla to investigate leading industry players if they plan to expand solar capacity in the future. However, space-based solar power is still in the technological exploration phase, without a clear industry roadmap. Speculative炒作 in A-shares related to this concept is largely opportunistic. SpaceX's Starship technology is not yet mature, and the million-satellite plan is still in its early stages, making a substantial impact on the photovoltaic industry unlikely in the short term. Furthermore, as the US is actively promoting a manufacturing回流 plan, even if SpaceX and Tesla intend large-scale procurement cooperation with Chinese PV companies, they would face complex geopolitical hurdles.
On February 5th, after the US market closed, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, released its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 financial results. The report showed that the company achieved Q4 revenue of $113.83 billion, an 18% year-on-year increase, and a net profit of $34.46 billion, a 29.8% year-on-year increase, surpassing market expectations. In the fourth quarter, the monthly active user base for the Gemini application grew to over 750 million, up from over 650 million in the previous quarter. Alphabet's two core businesses are advertising and cloud services. Q4 cloud revenue was $17.664 billion, a substantial 48% year-on-year increase, greatly exceeding expectations. Advertising revenue grew from $72.461 billion last year to $82.284 billion, a 14% increase. Alphabet projected its 2026 capital expenditures to be between $175 billion and $185 billion, significantly higher than the market's general expectation of around $120 billion.
Considering Alphabet's vast overall scale, the Q4 performance growth is indeed impressive. However, the market focused more on the staggering capital expenditure forecast. The财报 shows that, benefiting from the integration of Gemini into Google Search, the usage rate of Google Search has increased rather than decreased, with AI's substitution effect on traditional search engines not yet materializing, forming the foundation for Alphabet's advertising growth. However, the monetization speed of YouTube's short video business has been relatively slow, putting some pressure on its advertising segment. The cloud business has undoubtedly become Alphabet's second growth engine, with revenue growth far exceeding expectations, and remaining performance obligations sufficient to support continued high growth next year. Nevertheless, the massive capital expenditure plan poses a challenge to Alphabet's liquidity and will inevitably compress future net profit margins. In the long run, whether these investments will yield commensurate profit growth is closely tied to the development prospects of the AI industry.
On February 4th, US Eastern Time, the Nasdaq index opened lower and continued to decline, with intraday losses widening to 2%. The chip stock index fell over 6% at one point, with memory chip stocks experiencing even steeper declines. SanDisk, Western Digital, and Micron Technology saw midday drops exceeding 10%, while Seagate Technology fell over 9%. At the close, SanDisk was down about 16%, Micron dropped over 9%, Western Digital declined more than 7%, Seagate fell nearly 6%, and Nvidia decreased over 3%. Simultaneously, selling pressure continued in the software sector. In this memory market cycle, SanDisk has been a representative "sentiment barometer." Its stock price had surged over 1140% in six months, becoming a rare super-strong performer in the US market. After SanDisk released its earnings last Thursday after the close, market sentiment was further ignited; by Tuesday's close, its stock had accumulated a gain of nearly 29% over three trading sessions, showing a steep short-term ascent.
Starting Tuesday, the sell-off in the tech sector, initially led by software stocks, continued, with risk appetite in the US market plummeting sharply. Even Nvidia, the absolute leader in the AI industry, was pulled down. During the earnings season, most tech companies reported excellent results, especially the leading ones. However, these strong reports ironically became a trigger for selling, as the market widely worries that increased AI investments by tech companies may not yield desired financial returns. Coupled with an epic collapse in the precious metals market, which amplified negative sentiment, US tech stocks faced collective selling pressure. Around mid-last year, market concerns about an "AI bubble" were prominent, also leading to a downturn for US tech stocks. With market expectations摇摆不定 and pessimism easily contagious, short-term market adjustments are often severe.
On February 5th, the three major A-share indices saw narrowed losses in the afternoon after falling over 1% earlier. The Beijing Stock Exchange 50 index fell over 2%. The total turnover for the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets was 2.18 trillion yuan, shrinking by 304.8 billion yuan compared to the previous trading day. Over 3,700 stocks declined across the board. Sector-wise, the major consumer sector rose significantly, with rotations in food and beverage, retail, film and cinema, and tourism and hotels. The large financial sector strengthened in the afternoon. The commercial aerospace concept saw localized activity, and the computing power leasing concept rebounded. On the downside, non-ferrous metals, power grid equipment, and oil and gas sectors led the declines, with the precious metals concept plunging collectively. At the close, the Shanghai Composite Index was at 4075.92 points, down 0.64%, with a turnover of 947 billion yuan. The Shenzhen Component Index was at 13952.72 points, up 1.44%, with a turnover of 1.2292 trillion yuan. The ChiNext Index was at 3260.28 points, down 1.55%, with a turnover of 558.9 billion yuan.
On Thursday, the technology sector in both markets continued to decline influenced by external factors, leading to reduced risk appetite. From a sector perspective, defensive sentiment warmed. News of strong sales for leading baijiu producers continued to发酵, driving the major consumer sector higher throughout the day, although the baijiu sector showed slight fatigue after a recent rapid rebound. During the index adjustment, the banking sector resumed its upward trend. In the afternoon, the securities sector saw another异动拉升, jointly supporting the indices. As international gold and silver prices experienced wide fluctuations, the precious metals sector, along with energy and non-ferrous metals, led the declines all day. The technology sector narrowed its losses after a sharp morning decline. Approaching the Spring Festival holiday and amid cooling sentiment in global capital markets, overall trading enthusiasm in the A-share market waned, with turnover shrinking rapidly back to the 2 trillion yuan range.