Hello everyone, I am Xiao Liu. The pharmacist is on a business trip again, so I will be writing tonight’s report. In fact, I will also be on a business trip next week; it has been a busy time lately.
1. Pre-prepared Dishes
Recently, the “verbal battle” between Luo Yonghao and Xibei has intensified. It all started when Luo Yonghao habitually complained on Weibo that Xibei “is almost entirely pre-prepared dishes, yet so expensive.” In response, Xibei’s founder, Jia Guolong, firmly denied using pre-prepared dishes and claimed he would sue Luo Yonghao.
Ironically, Boss Jia confidently invited media and influencers to investigate and film in the restaurant to prove that he does not use pre-prepared dishes. As a result, the hygiene conditions in Xibei’s kitchen are indeed exemplary in the industry, extremely clean, but the ingredients are a different story. Frozen ingredients with a shelf life of over a year and a list full of additives, such as the “ancient” lamb foreleg produced on September 19 last year, and overnight lamb chops that were sold two days after cooking. It is worth noting that Xibei is currently targeting the parent-child market, essentially allowing mothers to dine out with their children without cooking, ensuring hygiene and freshness.
Well, isn’t this self-exposure? Just because they don’t use cooking packages doesn’t mean they aren’t using pre-prepared dishes, right? Parents may wish to give their children freshly slaughtered lamb and freshly picked broccoli, but they are not completely against pre-prepared dishes; after all, Sally’s occasionally takes her child to eat there. However, Xibei promotes fresh ingredients as a selling point, and the prices are not cheap, yet the ingredients come from an “ancient secret realm”. This directly contradicts the main audience that values food safety.
Personally, I believe Boss Jia’s original intention was to use this incident to generate traffic, as he built his career on this model. Whether it was Xibei’s history of spending exorbitant consulting fees to “rebrand” or various brand promotions, it has always been about generating traffic. However, it is a huge mistake to engage in a public spat with Luo Yonghao, the top figure in the stand-up comedy scene and an industry luminary. Influencers love to engage in mutual criticism and conflicts; they have even smashed Siemens refrigerators in public, so why not Xibei? Moreover, Boss Jia inadvertently provided evidence, and it seems that Luo has never had such an easy battle before.
Boss Jia’s confidence likely stems from the lack of national standards defining pre-prepared dishes. He probably thought that since his kitchen is indeed hygienic, he had the “advantage”. However, he likely did not anticipate that he would offend a significant portion of his target audience. This can only be attributed to the lack of regulations and standards in the restaurant industry regarding pre-prepared dishes.
However, this chaos will not last long. The draft of the “National Standard for Food Safety of Pre-prepared Dishes”, led by the National Health Commission, has quietly passed expert review this weekend and will soon be open for public consultation. At that time, there will be a unified definition standard for pre-prepared dishes, and whether and how restaurants use pre-prepared dishes will also be included in mandatory information disclosure for the first time. This will be a critical juncture for the pre-prepared dish industry, and combined with the recent trending topic of Xibei, it is expected that related concept stocks will respond tomorrow.
2. Semiconductors
On the evening of September 13, the Ministry of Commerce announced that it would initiate an anti-dumping investigation into certain imported analog chips originating from the United States. This investigation was initiated at the request of the domestic industry in China and involves general interface and gate driver chips, complying with Chinese laws and regulations as well as relevant World Trade Organization provisions. At the same time, the Ministry of Commerce also announced that it would launch an anti-discrimination investigation regarding the measures taken by the United States in the integrated circuit field against China and respond to the U.S. listing of several Chinese entities on the “entity list”, stating that it would take necessary measures to firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.
The China Semiconductor Industry Association immediately issued a statement supporting the Ministry of Commerce’s decision to investigate. The association emphasized that the healthy development of the semiconductor industry relies on a fair competitive environment, encouraging enterprises to achieve healthy competition through technological innovation, industrial chain collaboration, and mutually beneficial international cooperation, thereby promoting industry progress. The association will also actively support and cooperate with the investigation authorities in their work to firmly uphold fair trade and the legitimate rights and interests of the industry.
According to the application materials submitted by the Jiangsu Semiconductor Industry Association, the U.S. companies involved include four major manufacturers: Texas Instruments, ADI, Broadcom, and ON Semiconductor. Preliminary evidence shows that during the investigation application period, the prices of related chip products imported from the U.S. have significantly decreased, with dumping margins exceeding 300% for exports to China, and the annual market share of the products involved in China has reached 41%. In terms of import volume, the total import volume of these products from 2022 to 2024 has continued to rise, with 1.159 billion units, 1.299 billion units, and 1.590 billion units respectively.
The semiconductor industry, as the core area of Sino-U.S. technological competition, has once again become a focal point. This anti-dumping investigation particularly targets analog chips used in automotive, industrial, and other fields with process nodes of 40nm and above. Essentially, the root cause of this incident is that the U.S. is exerting extreme pressure ahead of the negotiations on the 14th, and we are also responding in kind.
Overall, this incident has three impacts on the A-share market: first, it directly benefits the domestic substitution process of analog chips; second, it benefits the memory chip sector, as it also has U.S. substitution attributes and is currently in a price increase cycle; third, it further strengthens the trend of self-control across the entire semiconductor industry chain, accelerating the layout of domestic production.
3. Smart Cars
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and eight other departments jointly issued the “Automobile Industry Stable Growth Work Plan (2025-2026)”, clearly proposing to stimulate automobile consumption potential through technological innovation and promote the large-scale application of intelligent connected technology to facilitate high-quality development of the automobile industry.
In terms of technological innovation, the plan emphasizes accelerating the organization and implementation of major scientific and technological projects in the automotive field, supporting large, medium, and small enterprises in collaborative innovation, fully leveraging the advantages of open source, and focusing on breakthroughs in key technologies such as automotive chips, operating systems, artificial intelligence, and solid-state batteries. By continuously improving product economy, durability, and comfort, new functions such as intelligent interaction and intelligent driving will be developed to create new demand through high-quality supply. At the same time, the “Upward Development of Chinese Automotive Brands” special action will continue to cultivate internationally competitive Chinese automotive brands.
In terms of intelligent connected applications, the plan points out the need to deeply carry out pilot applications of “vehicle-road-cloud integration”, accelerate the construction of connected infrastructure and cloud control platforms, encourage the use of high-performance communication modules such as pre-installed V2X and 5G, promote the large-scale application of the Beidou system, and expand applications in multiple scenarios such as logistics, sanitation, and travel services. In addition, it will promote pilot projects for the access and road use of intelligent connected vehicles, conditionally approve the production access of L3-level autonomous driving models, and promote the improvement of relevant laws and regulations regarding road traffic safety and insurance. It supports enterprises in the automotive, communications, and transportation industries to explore new business models with data as a link, cultivating a diversified value chain.
It is worth noting that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will publicly solicit opinions on the standards for intelligent connected vehicle combination driving assistance systems next week. With the continuous implementation of policies, the intelligent connected vehicle industry is ushering in a series of favorable developments. Automotive chips are expected to accelerate the realization of self-control under the dual promotion of the anti-dumping policy for analog chips and the enhancement of intelligent connected penetration.
Postscript
Next week, the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates
Disclaimer: This public account is a personal review diary, intended only for record-keeping and communication purposes, and does not recommend any stocks in any form.