The Toronto Stock Exchange’s parent company has already completed a major deal this year: its acquisition of ETF education company VettaFi.

According to TMX Group CEO John McKenzie, the deal helps expand its exchange-traded fund business globally.

“The exchange-traded fund is essentially one of the most important innovations in investing in the marketplace history — at least in the last 20 [to] 30 years,” McKenzie told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” this week. “What we were really looking to do is … get deeper into providing more support to our clients.”

Even though ETF activity has cooled off from its 2022 records, action in 2023 was still above previous years, according to iShares data.

McKenzie plans to utilize the VettaFi acquisition to facilitate more ETF creation.

“ETF providers can create new products and great solutions so that they can reach a broader investing audience,” McKenzie said. “That’s the one two punch of what we’re doing with that investment.”

TMX’s ETF Screener lists 1,264 ETFs and ETF-related funds on the Toronto Stock Exchange as of Friday.

With VettaFi in the exchange’s tool belt, McKenzie hopes to create new ETFs focusing on Canada’s economic strengths and how they can reach international investors.

“We want to be more global than local,” added McKenzie. “This is a great asset to help us build not just in the U.S., not just in Canada, but around the world.”

Since the acquisition was completed on Jan. 2, TMX shares are up 11%.

Disclaimer

Shares of Intuitive Machines jumped 16% in trading Friday after the company’s successful first moon landing.

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C cargo moon lander known as “Odysseus” on Thursday became the first privately developed spacecraft to land on the lunar surface — as well as the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on the moon in more than 50 years.

The company, based in Houston, Texas, confirmed that the IM-1 mission lander was standing upright and sending data back to Earth.

“Odysseus has found his new home,” Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines’ CTO and IM-1 mission director, said Thursday evening from the company’s mission control.

Intuitive Machines stock initially ripped 40% higher before paring gains with heavy trading volume to close at $9.59 a share. The company has a market valuation of about $1 billion.

The company’s stock has been rallying over the past month as excitement built in the lead-up to and progress of the IM-1 mission. Intuitive Machines went public via a SPAC a year ago and shares had steadily slid to all-time lows near $2 in January.

Wall Street analysts emphasized to CNBC ahead of the landing that the unprecedented nature of the event could lead to volatile momentum trading.

“We’ve never witnessed a publicly traded company go through [a moon landing attempt]. So this is new, not just for investors, but for us analysts as well,” Cantor Fitzgerald’s Andres Sheppard said before the landing.

In a note to investors after the landing, Cantor Fitzgerald increased its price target on Intuitive Machines’ stock to $13 a share from $4 a share.

“In our view, this validates the company’s technology and adds significant credibility to the business. As such, we believe Intuitive Machines is now very well positioned to continue to capitalize on the growing commercial space economy, and on subsequent launches,” Sheppard wrote in the note.

Intuitive Machines, in a statement Friday morning, said that “Odysseus is alive and well,” noting that the lander is charging its solar panels.

“Flight controllers are communicating and commanding the vehicle to download science data,” the company said.

The company and NASA plan to hold a press conference at 5 p.m. ET on Friday.

The Odysseus lander carried 12 government and commercial payloads — six of which are for NASA under a $118 million contract through the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative.

Intuitive Machines has already won two more CLPS contracts for future lander missions, with IM-2 expected to launch as early as the second half of this year.

Additionally, the company has part of a five-year $719 million contract to provide engineering services to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. Analysts expect the Goddard contract is worth about $11 million per month in revenue for Intuitive Machines, with Cantor Fitzgerald estimating the company will bring in about $338 million in fiscal year 2024 revenue.

LONDON — L’Oreal shares fell more than 7.3% in early deals Friday, before slightly paring losses, as the company reported lower-than-expected sales and pointed to a slowdown in demand in Asia.

Shares of the stock had recovered slightly to trade down by 6.7% at 12:30 p.m. London time.

The world’s largest beauty brand on Thursday reported fourth-quarter sales below estimates, rising 2.8% to 10.6 billion euros ($11.4 billion). Barclays analysts had anticipated a figure near 10.9 billion euros, according to Reuters.

The company, which owns brands such as Lancôme and Kiehl’s, also logged a 7.6% increase in 2023 full-year sales to 41.18 billion euros ($44.37 billion).

The quarterly shortfall was led by activity in North Asia, including China, where sales fell 6.2% over the three-month period. Sales were otherwise up in Europe and North America.

CEO Nicolas Hieronimus said Friday that the company remains very ambitious in China, adding that it has strong growth plans for the country in 2024 and beyond, according to Reuters.

The luxury sector has been under pressure since late 2023, as tough macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions have weighed on consumer spending, notable in the U.S. and China.

Still, certain high-end brands appear to have bucked the trend, continuing to attract increasingly selective shoppers.

Shares of Hermes were up 4.9% Friday morning after reporting a surge in sales as wealthy consumers continue to seek its exclusive Birkin handbags and silk scarves despite rising prices.

Fourth-quarter revenues rose 18% at constant exchange rates to 3.36 billion euros, while full-year revenues were up 21% to 13.42 billion euros. The company also announced plans for an exceptional dividend of 10 a euro share.

Speaking Friday, Executive Chairman Axel Dumas said product prices were likely to rise by an average of 8% to 9% in 2024, according to Bloomberg, which he said was indicative of the company’s continued appeal in an increasingly “polarized” market.

Hermes stock is currently up more than 13% for the year, ahead of LVMH, up 11%, and Burberry, down 8%.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang said that tech innovations should not be used as a way to restrict or contain other countries.

“To keep the competition healthy and bring out the greatest vitality, the only way is to enhance cooperation in innovation,” Li said via an official English translation of his Mandarin-language remarks made on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“Scientific and technological fruits should benefit humanity as a whole, instead of becoming a means to restrict or contain the development of other countries,” Li added, calling for “more open measures.”

Li did not specifically name any countries in his remarks. Beijing has repeatedly asked Washington to remove restrictions on Chinese companies that prevent them from buying advanced technology from U.S. firms.

U.S. measures in the last two years have explicitly focused on cutting China off from high-end semiconductors used for artificial intelligence, out of concern that the tech is fueling the military capabilities of Beijing.

Following his speech, Li spoke about the risks and opportunities of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, in a brief question-and-answer session with World Economic Forum Founder Klaus Schwab.

“To put plainly, we human beings must control the machines instead of having the machines control us,” Li said, calling for a universal “red line in AI development” without specifying details.

He added that AI shouldn’t just benefit a small group of people, and that the interests of developing countries should be prioritized.

U.S.-based OpenAI’s ChatGPT surged in popularity just over a year ago, but isn’t officially available in China. Many similar chatbots from Chinese companies, such as Baidu and Alibaba, launched to the public in mainland China, after getting the green light from authorities in August.

”In AI, we are doing a lot of work to roll out policies and regulations,” Li said. “We introduced many laws and regulations to ensure the data security, AI-related ethics and generative AI services. All these are efforts to explore an AI governance framework suited to China’s national conditions.”

Li on Tuesday cast China as a supporter of multilateralism and called for further global cooperation.

In his speech to global business leaders, Li emphasized that China would take steps to address concerns about the flow of data across international borders and the ability to participate equally in government procurement.

Foreign businesses operating in China have found it difficult to comply with the country’s tightened restrictions on data collection and export, also complaining that domestic businesses have unfair advantages when competing for local government bids.

“China remains firmly committed to opening up,” Li said. “We will continue to create favorable conditions for the world to share in China’s opportunities.”

Li met with Swiss President Viola Amherd ahead of the Davos conference and is set to visit Ireland later in the week.

China on Monday announced it will give Swiss citizens visa-free entry, while the Swiss side will “provide more visa facilitation” for Chinese citizens and businesses investing in Switzerland. It is not clear when the measures will take effect.

Li separately said in his speech of Tuesday that the Chinese economy grew by around 5.2% in 2023. His comments come a day ahead of the National Bureau of Statistics’ scheduled release of official GDP figures and other data, set for Wednesday in Beijing.

“In promoting economic development, we did not resort to massive stimulus. We did not seek short-term growth while accumulating long-term risks,” Li said. “Rather, we focused on strengthening the internal drivers.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping is skipping Davos this year. His U.S. counterpart Joe Biden has likewise not attended event since he became president.

Xi earlier on Tuesday called for increasing the connections between domestic and overseas financial markets, while ensuring financial security, according to state media outlet Xinhua.

The Chinese leader was giving a speech about the “high-quality development of China’s financial sector” at a school for Chinese Communist Party officials, also known as the National Academy of Governance.

— CNBC’s Jenni Reid contributed to this report.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Friday told investors what to watch for on Wall Street next week, highlighting JPMorgan‘s market-moving health-care conference in San Francisco. Taking place from Monday to Thursday, the conference is one of the year’s largest gatherings of major industry CEOs where they reveal earnings guidance and updates on clinical trial research.

“The new year has started with a redistribution of cash out of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ and on to the sidelines,” Cramer said, pointing to health-care stocks as a particularly notable group that will likely be “propelled by what people expect to hear from the JPMorgan Healthcare Conference.”

Cramer will interview several CEOs at the conference, starting with Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth on Monday. Cramer said he’s interested to hear how the company plans to get its groove back after cutting its dividend nearly in half this week. Cramer will also speak with leadership from Amgen and Medtronic, as well as the new CEO of Bristol Myers, Chris Boerner, whom he’ll ask about the company’s rigorous biotech acquisition plans.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Cramer will continue to interview the CEOs of major industry names, including Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks. Cramer said he’s particularly interested in the company’s diabetes and weight loss drug as well as its Alzheimer’s initiative. He’ll also speak with CVS Health CEO Karen S. Lynch to discuss the company’s ongoing transition from drug store to health-care provider. Cramer will also hear from the CEOs of Pfizer, Regeneron, Novartis, Abbott Labs and Cencora.

Thursday brings the consumer price index for December. Cramer said he thinks those hoping for soft figures will be disappointed. Cramer will also be tuning into CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, next week. The tech event will include commentary by leadership from Nvidia and Dell.

Earnings season kicks off Friday with reports from major banks including JPMorgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. BlackRock will also report, and Cramer said he thinks the company’s earnings could give investors a solid overview of the financial industry. He’ll also be paying attention to Friday reports from UnitedHealth Group and Delta.

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Disclaimer The CNBC Investing Club Charitable Trust holds shares of Eli Lilly.

BEIJING — Chinese consumer electronics company Xiaomi on Thursday detailed plans to enter China’s oversaturated electric vehicle market and compete with automaker giants Tesla and Porsche with a car model it says it spent more than 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) to develop.

The company’s car model, known as Xiaomi SU7, “is in trial production and it will hit the domestic market in a few months,” CEO Lei Jun said in a Tuesday post on the X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter. “The price has not been finalized yet.”

Pronounced “Sue Qi” in Mandarin, the Xiaomi SU7 beats Porsche’s Taycan and Tesla’s Model S on acceleration and other metrics, Lei said during a three-hour presentation on Thursday.

He laid out bold ambitions to become an industry leader, including in autonomous driving and noted that the SU7 design team previously worked at BMW and Mercedes Benz.

Sales are due to begin in 2024, after more than three years of development— during which electric vehicles have taken off in China’s highly competitive market, and domestic automakers have begun to differentiate their products through ambitious offerings of car-compatible tech.

This is an area of potential advantage for Xiaomi, which is best known for its smartphones and home appliances and previously said it wants to create a “‘Human x Car x Home’ smart ecosystem.”

The SU7 is integrated with Xiaomi’s smartphones and internet-connected home appliances, Lei announced Thursday. He emphasized the company’s efforts to ensure data privacy among the devices and create a car that surpasses U.S. safety standards for rear-end collisions.

Lei said the vehicle will also be compatible with Apple’s iPhone, iPad, CarPlay and AirPlay. The U.S. giant has yet to release a car despite widespread speculation of such plans.

Two Xiaomi SU7 models appeared on a list of tax-exempt new energy vehicles published by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Tuesday.

The document described the cars as purely battery powered, with driving range of 628 kilometers (390 miles) to 800 kilometers. The ministry listed a subsidiary of state-owned BAIC Group as the manufacturer for the Xiaomi SU7.

While the car isn’t yet available, Xiaomi has started selling its flagship smartphone and smart watch in the “aqua blue” and “olive oil green” colors of the SU7 sedan.

A price for the SU7 has yet to be revealed, but Lei hinted the purchase would not be cheap and dismissed rumors of a 99,000 yuan or 140,000 yuan price tag.

The Xiaomi car tech event comes as several domestic EV players have recently revealed new electric vehicles.

Nio on Saturday debuted its 800,000 yuan ($113,090) ET9, set to begin deliveries in the first quarter of 2025.Huawei’s Aito brand on Tuesday unveiled its M9 SUV — starting at 469,800 yuan and due to begin mass deliveries in late February 2024.Zeekr, backed by Geely, on Wednesday announced its 007 sedan would start at 209,000 yuan with deliveries beginning on Jan. 1.

Xpeng, which Xiaomi backed in 2019, is set to launch its X9 vehicle on Jan. 1, 2024. Ahead of the Thursday event, Lei shared pictures on popular Chinese social media platform Weibo which showed buildings lit up with messages of Xiaomi saying it salutes BYD, Nio, Xpeng, Li Auto and Huawei.

Xiaomi shares closed 0.25% lower in Hong Kong trading on Thursday. The company’s Hong Kong-traded shares are up by more than 40% so far this year. The business claimed record sales of more than $3 billion across various e-commerce platforms during this year’s Singles Day shopping festival.

Xiaomi has said it expects to spend 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) on research on development this year, up by 25% from 2022 and more than double the amount spent in 2020.

BEIJING — Livestream shopping is taking off in China, driving development of new tech products such as virtual human streamers and mobile data packages.

It’s an attempt to monetize — and innovate — in one of the few bright spots for an economy that’s largely slowing in growth.

Livestreaming e-commerce saw sales surge by 19% during the latest Singles Day shopping festival in November, while sales via traditional e-commerce dropped by 1%, according to McKinsey analysis.

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, retailers in China have rushed to hire or develop in-house livestream hosts to sell products. Individuals, such as online influencer Austin Li, have become celebrities and overnight millionaires through using livestream commerce.

“Livestreaming, particularly livestreaming commerce, is something no country in the world has anything at the scale China has,” said Daniel Zipser, senior partner and leader of McKinsey’s Asia consumer and retail practice.

Now companies are testing out livestreaming hosts that are digitally created humans — either avatars that represent an actual human host, or a virtual human being created from scratch.

That use of virtual livestreaming hosts was a trend that stood out during this year’s Singles Day, said Xiaofeng Wang, principal analyst at Forrester.

“The quality has improved a lot this year, the virtual hosts look more real, at least the ones I’ve seen from Tencent, JD,” she said.

Wang added that using virtual livestreamers is a way for retailers to differentiate themselves from others, as well as reduce the cost of hiring a famous influencer, who might also carry the risk of being involved with celebrity scandals.

Tencent has launched a product that only needs a three-minute video of a user along with 100 spoken sentences to build a virtual avatar.

The company also has a “Zen Video” platform that lets people create simple promotional videos with a virtual human spokesperson.

Some companies are also combining ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence with livestreaming.

Online retail giant JD.com said its Yanxi virtual anchor product — based on the company’s AI model — was used in livestreaming sessions for more than 4,000 brands during Singles Day this year. One virtual streamer broadcast for 28 hours straight, according to JD’s technology arm. 

Baidu, best known for its search engine and Ernie AI chatbot, got into online shopping this Singles Day with the first at-scale use of its virtual human livestreaming product “Huiboxing” on its “Youxuan” e-commerce platform. The company claims virtual humans ran 17,000 streams from Oct. 20 to Nov. 11.

During that time, electronics giant Suning saw virtual human livestreaming contribute more than 3 million yuan ($420,000) in gross merchandise value on a single day, according to Baidu. GMV measures sales over time.

The digital human livestreamers are currently free for merchants to use on Baidu’s e-commerce platform and are based on the large language model behind Ernie bot, said Wu Chenxia, head of Huiboxing, adding the product uses big data to create multiple livestreaming scripts in an instant.

Regulators have their eye on the sector.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT isn’t officially accessible in China. Baidu’s Ernie bot wasn’t available for widespread use until late August when Beijing gave the green light.

Livestreaming success is also dependent on consistent video connection.

Potential buyers are almost always watching on their mobile phones, while sellers may try to livestream from the field where they are growing the produce.

Mobile service operators China Unicom and China Mobile have started to sell data packages geared toward livestreamers in parts of the country.

These packages splice the network so that livestreamers get priority service, similar to how an express lane on a highway may only allow buses to use it to avoid traffic, said Joe Wang of Huawei’s ICT department.

All that is based on having widespread 5G connectivity, which allows livestreamers to broadcast outdoors or simultaneously on multiple platforms, he said.

Looking ahead, 5.5G will theoretically increase download speeds by 10 times compared to 5G, and upload speeds by two to three times, Wang said. He expects 5.5G will reach consumers as early as 2025, while AI’s development is letting businesses quickly turn 2D images into 3D ones.

That means, Wang said, that 3D livestreaming may be a reality in about two years.

In the meantime, even companies such as Quantasing that sell adult education courses have jumped on the bandwagon by hosting livestreaming e-commerce – generating GMV of 13.3 million yuan in August.

CEO Matt Li said Quantasing holds more than 10 livestreaming sessions at once, and uses technology to decide what types of products and resources to dedicate to each one in order to generate the most revenue.

As fast as it’s grown, livestreaming is subject to China’s stringent regulation on content.

Analysts have also pointed out that livestreaming sales are often impulse buys, leading to many product returns.

From Jo Malone London to Chinese education company New Oriental, companies have turned to livestreaming sales as a way to stay connected with consumers in China and get them to spend money.

Importantly, businesses are shifting from using influencers, known as KOLs in China, to in-house livestreamers, McKinsey’s Zipser said.

“It is a clear indication [livestreaming] is not a hype, but it is something that companies are embracing and putting resources behind and the result of that is something that is here to stay,” he said.

Dan Hornberger has been a fan of the National Football League’s Philadelphia Eagles for as long as he can remember. As an adult, his office has team memorabilia lining the walls.

Last year, the devout supporter went to five home games, about an hour-and-a-half drive from his house. This year, however, Hornberger’s only on track to attend two games as costs soar.

“I’m a huge fan,” Hornberger, 40, said. “Ultimately, what it comes down to is just outright refusal on my part to pay those kinds of prices.”

Sports prices have surged this fall, according to federal data. That’s made game tickets the latest victim of “funflation,” a term used by economists to explain the increasing price tags of live events as consumers hanker for the experiences they lost during the pandemic.

Admission prices for sporting events jumped 25.1% in October 2023 from the same month a year prior, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index data. The category saw the highest annualized inflation rate out of the few hundred that make up the inflation gauge.

CPI as a whole rose a relatively modest 3.2% on an annualized basis. The index tracks the prices of a broad basket of items including milk, jewelry and airline fares.

“We’ve seen this through the entire leisure and hospitality sector,” said Victor Matheson, a professor and sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross. “People are getting back to things that they enjoy doing and are willing to pay a bunch.”

Part of the reason consumers may be seeing higher ticket prices for their favorite sports teams is because of the increasing use of dynamic pricing models, Matheson said. These structures allow ticket-selling platforms to fetch more or less per ticket, depending on demand for the event at any given moment.

There’s also an alignment of attention-grabbing sporting events taking place this fall. Beyond the typical major-league seasons, the Formula One race in Las Vegas last week and the announcement of soccer legend Lionel Messi’s move to the Inter Miami team this summer have boosted enthusiast spending.

But a large reason for the eye-popping 25.1% jump is because of how low prices were a year ago, Matheson said. Teams slashed ticket values in 2022 in a bid to win back fans who had grown accustomed to watching at home.

Sports ticket prices were 14.2% higher in October than in November 2019, a smaller gain than the entire index’s 19.6% increase, a CNBC analysis of CPI data shows. Much of the upward pressure on admission costs has come this year, underscoring the role of funflation as consumers shift their attention from Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts to NFL and Major League Baseball games.

“We’re seeing a gigantic bounce back in prices,” Matheson said. 

NFL and National Hockey League sales have approximately doubled in 2023 compared with the prior year, according to ticket platform StubHub. NBA sales were up nearly 60% at the start of the season compared with the last, while college football has seen an increase of around 50%.

To be sure, not every sport this year has seen the same price growth. StubHub said ticket prices across the top 10 sporting events were 15% higher in 2022 than they were in 2023.

Matheson said tamer inflation overall should help cool sector-specific growth. A return to a more normalized entertainment spending routine following the post-pandemic experience boom can also help quell demand and prices, he added.

Rodney Paul, director of the sports analytics program at Syracuse University, said interest in attending games should be somewhat stable even if the economy worsens. That’s because a sizable portion of the consumer base is well-off enough to afford pro-sports tickets — which he said is essentially a luxury item — and should be able to better weather a downturn given their financial status.

But Paul said a meaningful change to the state of the economy could push fans who are less financially stable to cut back on extraneous expenses, in turn hurting demand. Cash-strapped consumers may justify spending more than they’d like to this year by reminding themselves they didn’t splurge as much or at all on game tickets during the pandemic, Matheson said.

Part of the financial stress comes from the resale market for tickets, some sports enthusiasts say. The rising price of parking and food inside of the stadium also have to be factored in to the financial calculation of fans such as Hornberger and Sara Weddington.

Weddington was able to save enough enough to attend a Kansas City Chiefs game last season, but she said it feels out of the question this year as prices have climbed. The long-time resident of the Kansas City area said she feels for people who have never gotten to see a game before recent cost increases.

“To have such a monumental part of the community be so out of reach for a lot of people is really upsetting,” the 23-year-old said. “Not being able to go to a game is like going to a candy store and not being able to get any candy.”

Still, Paul of Syracuse University said sports have taken on a new meaning in the post-pandemic world. As people increasingly work from home, he said there’s a larger need for in-person social spaces — and those who can afford it are more willing to shell out.

“There’s a real craving for that kind of feeling of togetherness that the sports world brings,” he said. It’s “a really exciting experience that maybe is even more exciting now because people had lost it in the past.”

— CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes contributed to this report.

BEIJING — U.S. chipmaking giant Nvidia has reportedly found a way to sell high-end chips to Chinese companies — while remaining compliant with U.S. rules aimed at curbing China’s access to the tech.

China accounts for 20% to 25% of Nvidia’s revenue in its data center business, its biggest unit.

Nvidia is set to deliver three new chips to domestic manufacturers in the coming days, Chinese financial media Cailian Press said Thursday, citing sources.

The chips — called HGX H20, L20 PCle and L2 PCle — are based on Nvidia’s H100 chip, the report said.

The H100 and A100 artificial intelligence chips were the first to be hit by new U.S. restrictions last year that aimed to curb sales to China. Nvidia said in a September 2022 filing the U.S. government would still allow it to develop the H100 in China.

Companies in China had then switched to Nvidia’s H800 and A800 chips, but the U.S. subsequently clamped down on those sales last month with new restrictions.

The H20’s computing power is only about 50% of that of the A100, said Bo Du, managing director at WestSummit Capital Management and a former engineer in the chip industry.

That’s “basically saying goodbye to physical simulation,” he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. While it’s possible to use clusters of lower-power chips to support large model calculations, he said there’s no ideal solution given the costs.

“In the near term, Chinese manufacturers have no better option and they will continue to buy Nvidia’s chips, while searching for replacements,” Du said, noting that some large internet companies have started to buy domestically-made AI chips at scale.

Demand for artificial intelligence computing power has only gone up as companies in China rush to develop local versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

The Financial Times also reported the news of Nvidia’s new chips for the China market, citing a document the chipmaker distributed to potential customers.

Nvidia declined to comment. The U.S. Department of Commerce and the Bureau of Industry and Security did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

All three of Nvidia’s new chips have operating metrics outside the threshold of the U.S. restrictions, research firm SemiAnalysis said in an online post Thursday. The company operates a Substack tech newsletter that claims to have more than 64,000 subscribers.

“Nvidia is perfectly straddling the line on peak performance and performance density with these new chips to get them through the new US regulations,” SemiAnalysis said.

Nomura analysts previously found Nvidia’s Drive AGX Orin chip also did not meet all the criteria warranting a U.S. restriction on sales to China, allowing electric car companies in the country to still use the chip.

The U.S. has said its focus is on limiting China’s development of advanced tech for military use. President Joe Biden’s administration has also emphasized the country is in competition with China.

Domestic players are trying to develop workarounds to the U.S. restrictions.

In late August, Huawei released a smartphone that reviews indicated offers download speeds associated with 5G, thanks to an advanced semiconductor chip.

It’s not clear whether older equipment or alternative procurement processes were involved with the latest chip production.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.

BEIJING — Chinese tech giant Huawei reported revenue figures Friday that showed only a 1% increase in the third quarter from a year ago, according to CNBC calculations.

That’s despite the company’s release of a popular new smartphone in late August and growing sales within its electric car venture.

Huawei said revenue for the first three quarters of the year rose by 2.4% year-on-year to 456.6 billion yuan ($62.33 billion) — the highest for the period since 2020. U.S. sanctions on the Chinese telco maker started in 2019.

Despite those restrictions on Huawei’s ability to access high-end tech, reviews indicated the company’s new Mate 60 Pro smartphone offers download speeds associated with 5G — thanks to an advanced semiconductor chip.

Huawei quietly launched the phone in China in late August, and declined to share more during a seasonal product launch event in late September.

More than 1.6 million Mate 60 series devices were sold during the first six weeks of sales, according to Counterpoint Research.

The research firm estimated that the majority, about 75%, of units sold were Pro models — that’s about 1.2 million units sold.

Apple, which launched its iPhone 15 in September, is expected to sell 10 million units of the new phone in China this year, for an expected total of 45.5 million iPhone sales in the country, according to Shanghai-based CINNO Research estimates.

The U.S. company saw smartphone sales fall by 10% in the third quarter from a year ago, while Huawei’s sales surged by 37%, Counterpoint Research said Thursday.

Huawei has also built up a presence in China’s fast-growing new energy vehicle market, which includes hybrid and battery-powered cars.

The company sells its operating system and components, such as for driver-assist tech, to car manufacturers.

In December 2021, Huawei launched its own car brand Aito in collaboration with manufacturer Seres.

Orders for Aito’s latest M7 topped 60,000 as of Oct. 16, just about a month after its release, according to a social media post from Richard Yu, who heads Huawei’s car-related and consumer business.

On Wednesday, Aito said pre-orders for its forthcoming M9 SUV had topped 15,000.

Huawei is not publicly traded and did not break out revenue by business segment in its latest update.

The telecommunications giant said it recorded partial gains from the sale of certain businesses, but did not specify which ones.

Huawei said its net profit margin for the first three quarters of the year was 16%. That’s up from a profit margin of 15% reported for the first half of the year, when revenue grew by 3.1% to 310.9 billion yuan.

Third-quarter revenue was 145.7 billion yuan, up by 1% from the 144.2 billion yuan in the year-ago period, CNBC calculations of Huawei figures showed.

Huawei continued its efforts to expand its patent licensing business during the third quarter with Xiaomi and Ericsson deals, which covered 5G connectivity.

The telecommunications giant has rolled out 5G-based business applications in mining, ports and manufacturing, but it was unclear from Friday’s release how much revenue, if any, they generated for the company in the third quarter.

Huawei also pressed ahead in international markets by expanding its cloud business to Saudi Arabia in September. The company said this week it opened a research lab in Finland for testing health and fitness wearables.

The U.S. has maintained the Chinese telecommunications giant is a national security risk due to alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party and the country’s military. Huawei has repeatedly denied the existence of any such risk.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report.