Raphael Stevens

Paramount Global will raise the price of its flagship streaming service, Paramount+.
The option with Showtime will increase by $1 a month, while the essential Paramount+ plan will rise by $2.
The price increases come amid a company restructuring after a merger opportunity with Skydance fell through.

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Paramount Global is hiking the price of its flagship streaming service as the company looks to turn around its business.
The company said Monday it will raise the price of the Paramount+ with Showtime plan by $1 to $12.99 a month, and the price of its Paramount+ Essential option will increase by $2 to $7.99 a month for all new subscribers.

The price increase takes effect on Aug. 20 for new customers for both plans. Existing Paramount+ with Showtime customers will see the price increase hit on or after Sept. 20. Existing Paramount+ Essential customers — who don’t receive Showtime content — won’t pay more for their plans.
The price of the limited Paramount+ commercial option will also increase by $1 to $7.99 for current customers.
More media companies have increased streaming prices as they look to make a profit on the cash-losing business. Paramount executives had said publicly on multiple occasions they see a lot of opportunities to increase the price of streaming services.
Comcast’s NBCUniversal said it would raise prices for Peacock in July, ahead of the Summer Olympics, which will air exclusively on the NBC broadcast network and Peacock. It will be Peacock’s second price increase in the past year.
Earlier this month, Warner Bros. Discovery announced it would increase the cost of its Max streaming service.

Paramount had combined the Showtime and Paramount+ platforms last year in a push to condense content spending, which has become a particular focus for media companies. The company increased Paramount+ prices late last year, too.
Paramount said in April it had added 3.7 million Paramount+ subscribers during the first quarter, bringing the total to 71 million. However, like most of its media peers, Paramount posted losses related to its streaming service. The company said the losses during the first quarter narrowed to $286 million from $511 million during the year-earlier period.
The price increase comes after National Amusements earlier this month stopped discussions with Skydance on a proposed merger with Paramount. National Amusements, which is owned by Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, had previously agreed to economic terms of a merger with a consortium including David Ellison’s Skydance, before ending the deal talks.
The company is now being led by a trio of leaders, called the “Office of the CEO,” made up of CBS CEO George Cheeks, Paramount Media Networks CEO Chris McCarthy and Paramount Pictures CEO Brian Robbins.
The three leaders recently laid out their plan to turn around the company at Paramount’s annual shareholder meeting, in the event the deal with Skydance fell through.
The strategic priorities — with an eye toward lowering Paramount’s debt — included exploring streaming joint venture opportunities with other media companies and eliminating $500 million in costs, as well as divesting noncore assets.
The trio said they would unveil further plans during Paramount’s earnings report in August.
— Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.

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Ferrari is opening a new E-Building in Maranello, Italy, that will produce traditional internal combustion engine cars alongside hybrid and future all-electric models.
The electric model’s launch is scheduled in the fourth quarter of 2025 and has already sparked debate in the automotive community and among car collectors.
“The final judge will be the client,” CEO Benedetto Vigna told CNBC. “More people have started to drive our electric Ferrari, and they have a good feeling. The driving traits are there.”

Ferrari’s all-electric model won’t be launched for over a year, but early tests indicate it has all the driving traits and emotion of a true Ferrari, according to Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna.
“The final judge will be the client,” Vigna told CNBC during the opening of the company’s new E-Building in Maranello, Italy. “More people have started to drive our electric Ferrari, and they have a good feeling. The driving traits are there.”

Vigna said the defining characteristic of a Ferrari is the emotional experience. Having driven the all-electric Ferrari himself, he said, “I had this kind of emotion.”
Ferrari’s plan to build an electric model marks a bold and expensive bet for a luxury automaker famed for its roaring, powerful combustion engines. Little is known about the electric model, which is not scheduled for launch until the fourth quarter of 2025. Yet the notion of an electric Prancing Horse has already set off a vigorous debate in the auto community and among wealthy car collectors.
Much of the debate is focused on engine sound. Ferrari powertrains are prized for their symphony of roars, rumbles, pops and high-pitched whines. Electric motors are largely silent.
Vigna said Ferrari’s power acoustics will always be “authentic,” meaning the company won’t try to recreate the sound of a combustion engine through fake audio programs. He hinted, however, that it could amplify or better showcase the natural sound of an electric motor.
“The electric engine is not silent,” he said. “There is a way to let it play in a unique way.”

Vigna added that engine sound is only one part of the emotional experience of driving the supercar.
“You interact with eyes, with ears, with your full body,” he said. “When you’re talking about the Ferrari experience, the driving traits in a car, you’re talking about having a unique emotion when you’re in the car. Because it’s about linear acceleration, lateral acceleration, braking experience, gearbox change. So there are many dimensions, not just the sound.”
Vigna declined to give projections for the price or overall sales of the all-electric Ferrari. He said the automaker will continue offering customers the choice of internal combustion engines and hybrids alongside the electric model. Ferrari, he said, will remain “technology neutral,” meaning it will leave it to clients to choose their powertrain.

An in-progress Ferrari at the supercar maker’s E-Building in Maranello, Italy.
Crystal Lau | CNBC

With the new E-Building, which spans over 400,000 square feet and cost over 200 million euros ($215 million) to build, Ferrari will for the first time be able to produce cars with any of the three powertrains in the same factory, which maximizes efficiency and flexibility.
“The choice is in the hands of the client,” Vigna said.
The CEO said while he expects some customers will never buy an electric Ferrari, others will make the switch and some drivers will only “become part of the Ferrari family” if they can buy electric.
With the new E-Building, the company also would be better equipped to meet market demand.
Ferrari produced fewer than 14,000 cars last year, and demand remains so strong that wait times for some models are up to three years. Vigna said the new E-Building will allow the supercar maker to expand production, but he declined to provide specific targets.
“Waiting is part of the experience” of owning a Ferrari, Vigna said.

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Fast fashion giant Shein has confidentially filed for a public listing in London, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
Shein confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering late last year, but the retailer has faced mounting backlash tied to allegations of forced labor in its supply chain.
IPO experts told CNBC a U.S. offering was becoming increasingly unlikely, and that a London offering could sidestep some of the expected hurdles.

Shein sign during its opening, at ABC Serrano, on 26 April, 2024 in Madrid, Spain. 
Alejandro Martinez Velez | Europa Press | Getty Images

Shein, the fast fashion giant with links to China, has confidentially filed for a public listing in London as it faces backlash in the U.S., a person familiar with the matter told CNBC.
The company had confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering in November but changed gears to London after it failed to win the support of American lawmakers. Elected officials in the U.S. have repeatedly expressed concerns about the use of forced labor in Shein’s supply chain and its use of a U.S. tax law exemption known as de minimis.

Shein would still prefer to go public in the U.S., sources previously told CNBC, and its filing in London doesn’t mean that an IPO will happen there. Shein had previously sought China’s approval to go public in the U.S. It’s unclear if Beijing has signed off on the London listing.
Shein, which was founded in China, has gone to great lengths to establish itself as a “global” company, moving its headquarters to Singapore in 2021. Still, the vast majority of its supply chain is still based in China, and the fact that it needed to seek Beijing’s approval to go public in the U.S. means regulators there view it as a Chinese company — and could exert control over its operations and data.
Shein’s London filing marks another twist in the company’s so-far long road to a public markets debut. It crashed onto the U.S. fashion scene during the Covid-19 pandemic and won over consumers with its ability to quickly offer the latest styles at rock bottom prices. It’s been a thorn in the side of U.S.-based competitors, which have ceded market share to the digital upstart and struggled to match its speed.
As Shein’s prominence in the U.S. grew, so did its ambitions to go public. It began waging a U.S. charm offensive as it sought to win the approval of lawmakers and the retail industry, but those efforts have not yet succeeded. Shein has applied for membership with the National Retail Federation, the industry’s largest trade association, multiple times and has repeatedly been rejected, CNBC reported.
It’s found itself caught in the crossfire of a tense geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and Beijing. American lawmakers, concerned about the influence companies with Chinese links can have on the U.S. economy, ramped up their scrutiny of Shein after it filed to go public. Some elected officials at the federal and state level have called on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to block the company’s listing because they say it would violate a U.S. law that bans the import of products made from the Xinjiang region in China, where the government has faced accusations of genocide against the Uyghur ethnic group.

Shein has acknowledged to CNBC that raw materials from banned regions have been found in its supply chain, but previous tests show that it’s done a better job, on average, of ridding such materials from its garments than the industry overall.
In May, the Wall Street Journal reported that Shein changed gears to London after the SEC told the retailer that its listing wouldn’t be accepted unless it made its filing public — a request that experts told the outlet was unusual. Typically, companies file to go public confidentially so they can protect sensitive information surrounding their operations and financials as regulators review the filing.
Even so, Shein’s executive chairman insists that its ambitions to go public are about transparency — not about raising capital.
“Most companies seek to go public for liquidity reasons,” Donald Tang told the outlet. “We seek to go public to embrace scrutiny and public diligence.”
— CNBC’s Sara Salinas contributed to this report More

Target has struck a deal with Shopify to discover new brands and hot items for its third-party marketplace.
For Target, adding the items could help drive online traffic as the discounter tries to get back to sales and e-commerce growth.
Third-party marketplaces tend to be lucrative businesses as retailers get a cut of sellers’ profits and can sell ads or fulfillment services.

Reuters (L) | Getty Images (R)

Target is turning to Shopify to add new and trendier brands to its website.
Starting Monday, the Minneapolis-based discounter said companies that work with Shopify can apply to join Target Plus, its third-party marketplace. Some of Shopify’s customers are smaller or up-and-coming brands that use the e-commerce platform to build and operate a website.

Target and Shopify did not disclose financial terms or the length of the deal.
In an interview with CNBC, Target Chief Guest Experience Officer Cara Sylvester said Shopify will help the retailer discover hot items and quickly make them available for Target’s online shoppers. She said Target plans to put some popular items discovered through the Shopify deal on store shelves.
Target’s marketplace creates a “halo” and is “an accelerant to the total business,” she said. Sylvester added that as the company expands its online assortment and adds eye-catching merchandise, customers tend to visit its website more frequently and buy from both marketplace sellers and Target’s own brands.
The big-box retailer is trying to get back to sales growth as consumers buy less discretionary merchandise, with the discounter lagging behind grocery competitors like Walmart. Target has posted four consecutive quarters of declining comparable sales, and its overall sales have fallen in three of the past four quarters.
The company has struggled to grow its e-commerce business, too. Target’s digital sales grew 1.4% in the first quarter, the first such increase in more than a year.

Company leaders said in May that the retailer is on track to return to sales growth in the second quarter, but that’s partially due to its weak performance year over year. For the full year, Target said it expects comparable sales will range from flat to up 2%, with adjusted earnings per share of $8.60 to $9.60. 
Shares of Target have underperformed the broader stock market. As of Friday’s close, the company’s stock is up about 2% compared with the S&P 500’s nearly 15% increase. Its stock price of $146.13 is also well below the highs it hit during the Covid pandemic years, when it topped $260.
Shopify could also use a boost. Shares tumbled after its earnings report in May and are down about 17% so far this year.
Target Plus has only a tiny fraction of the revenue and sellers of other third-party marketplaces. Unlike Amazon, Walmart, eBay and others, Target allows brands to join by invitation only. It has more than 1,200 sellers, according to Target. Amazon counts about 2 million sellers and Walmart has about 135,000 sellers, according to estimates by Marketplace Pulse, a e-commerce research tracker.
Through the marketplace, Target’s website has carried items like the UnBrush, a detangling hairbrush that went viral on TikTok, and premium products, such as sunglasses from Ray-Ban and Coach. It offers more than 2 million products from brands including Crocs, Ruggable and Timberland. The assortment cuts across many categories including apparel, sporting goods and home decor.
Target said its marketplace has gained momentum. It said its seller and product count have more than doubled over the past calendar year.
The retailer doesn’t split out the revenue made through its third-party marketplace. Instead, it lumps it together in financial filings with “other revenue,” such as money made from credit card profit-sharing and its advertising business, Roundel. That other revenue totaled $388 million, accounting for less than 2% of its $24.53 billion of revenue that it reported in its most recent quarter, which ended May 4.
Yet Sylvester said Target Plus is “one of the fastest growing parts of Target’s business.”
Brands that join Target Plus also become potential customers of Roundel. The advertising business grew by more than 20% in the most recent quarter. Sylvester would not say how much of that came from ads bought by Target Plus sellers.
Third-party marketplaces have become a hot area in retail because they tend to drive higher profits. Instead of buying goods from suppliers, retailers rely on sellers that typically store and own the inventory. Those sellers also take on the financial risks if customers don’t want items or the products must be marked down.
Retailers typically get a cut of sellers’ sales. Plus, they can charge for services, such as fulfilling a brand’s online orders or selling advertisements, like sponsored search results, for sellers’ products.
Target does not offer fulfillment services, instead relying on Target Plus sellers to store, pack and ship their own goods.
Walmart, in particular, has ramped up its marketplace efforts as it tries to close the wide gap with Amazon and its dominant e-commerce platform. It has been recruiting sellers and offering new services, like the ability to ship bulky items like patio furniture or canoes. Sellers in Walmart’s U.S. marketplace grew 36% in the first quarter and it now has more than 420 million unique items, CEO Doug McMillon said on the company’s earnings call in mid-May.
Other marketplaces, such as TikTok Shop and Temu, are growing rapidly, too.

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Eli Lilly said it applied for U.S. approval of its weight loss drug Zepbound for the treatment of the most common sleep-related breathing disorder and expects regulators to make a decision as early as the end of the year.
The company released additional data from two late-stage trials showing that Zepbound helped resolve obstructive sleep apnea in almost half of patients.
The results add to growing evidence of additional health benefits tied to a buzzy class of weight loss and diabetes treatments, which have skyrocketed in popularity in the U.S. over the past year.

An injection pen of Zepbound, Eli Lilly’s weight loss drug, is displayed in New York City, Dec. 11, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Eli Lilly on Friday said it applied for U.S. approval of its weight loss drug Zepbound for the treatment of the most common sleep-related breathing disorder and expects regulators to make a decision as early as the end of the year.
If cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, the company plans to launch Zepbound for so-called obstructive sleep apnea “as quickly as we can” at the beginning of 2025, Patrik Jonsson, president of Eli Lilly diabetes and obesity, said in an interview.

Also on Friday, the company released additional data from two late-stage trials showing that Zepbound helped resolve obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA, in almost half of patients. Eli Lilly presented the new data from the trials at the American Diabetes Association’s 84th Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Florida, on Friday.
“We’re super excited. … I think it actually went beyond what most external experts were hoping for,” Jonsson said of the new data demonstrating that Zepbound can help resolve the disorder in some patients.
It adds to growing evidence that there could be further health benefits tied to a class of weight loss and diabetes treatments that have soared in popularity and slipped into shortages in the U.S. over the past year. The data also paves the way for Eli Lilly to gain broader insurance coverage for Zepbound, which, like other weight loss drugs, is not covered by many insurance plans.
The pharmaceutical giant in April released initial results from the two studies, which showed that Zepbound was more effective than a placebo at reducing the severity of OSA in patients with obesity after a year. 
OSA refers to interrupted breathing during sleep due to narrowed or blocked airways. An estimated 80 million patients in the U.S. experience the disease, Eli Lilly said in a press release. Around 20 million of those people have moderate-to-severe forms of the disease, but 85% of OSA cases go undiagnosed, according to Jonsson. 

OSA can lead to loud snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness, as well as contribute to serious complications, including stroke and heart failure. Patients with the condition have limited treatment options outside of wearing masks hooked up to cumbersome machines while sleeping that provide positive airway pressure, or PAP, to allow for normal breathing.
The first study examined the weekly injection in adults with moderate-to-severe OSA and obesity who were not on PAP therapy. The second trial tested Zepbound in adults with the same conditions, but those patients were on and planned on continuing PAP therapy. 
The new results showed that 43% of people in the first study and 51.5% of patients in the second trial who took the highest dose of Zepbound achieved “disease resolution,” according to a release. That compares with 14.9% and 13.6% of patients who took a placebo in the two trials, respectively. 
“This has huge impacts on patients’ lives,” Leonard Glass, senior vice president of medical affairs at Eli Lilly, diabetes and obesity, told CNBC. “Imagine not having to use a PAP machine, or not having to worry about waking up again in the middle of the night, or for your partners — not having to live with somebody with this condition.”
Researchers came to those conclusions by examining a so-called apnea-hypopnea index, or AHI, which records the number of times per hour a person’s breathing shows a restricted or completely blocked airway. The index is used to evaluate the severity of obstructive sleep apnea and the effectiveness of treatments for the condition. 
Disease resolution for OSA is defined as a patient having fewer than five AHI events per hour, according to Eli Lilly. It is also defined as a person having five to 14 AHI events per hour and scoring a certain number on a standard survey designed to measure excessive daytime sleepiness, the company said. 
Among other new data, the company said 62.3% of patients in the first trial who took Zepbound saw a greater than 50% reduction in AHI events, compared with 19.2% of those on placebo. Meanwhile, 74.3% of people in the second study who took Eli Lilly’s drug saw a more than 50% reduction in AHI, compared with 22.9% of participants who received a placebo.
Eli Lilly on Friday reiterated that Zepbound met the main goal of the trial, which was reducing AHI events. 
Zepbound led to an average of 27.4 fewer AHI events per hour at 52 weeks in people who were not on PAP machines. That compares to an average reduction of 4.8 events per hour for those who received a placebo in the first trial. 
The drug also led to an average of 30.4 fewer AHI events per hour at 52 weeks in patients who were on PAP machines, compared with an average reduction of six events per hour for people on the placebo in the second study.
Eli Lilly previously announced that the FDA granted Zepbound “fast track designation” for patients with moderate-to-severe OSA and obesity. The designation ensures that drugs intended to both treat a serious or life-threatening condition and fill an unmet medical need get reviewed more quickly.

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