Across advanced economies, the rental market is undergoing a profound change. In the years before covid-19 struck, rents were high but not growing fast: the cost of leasing a home rose by about 2% a year, according to official data. During the pandemic, rental inflation slowed and, in some cities, rents fell as landlords desperately looked for tenants. More
Across advanced economies, the rental market is undergoing a profound change. In the years before covid-19 struck, rents were high but not growing fast: the cost of leasing a home rose by about 2% a year, according to official data. During the pandemic, rental inflation slowed and, in some cities, rents fell as landlords desperately looked for tenants. More
Goldman Sachs Asset Management is trying to serve more investors looking for downside protection from market turmoil.
Bryon Lake helped the firm launch its newest buffer exchange-traded fund this month: the Goldman Sachs U.S. Large Cap Buffer 3 ETF.
“I’m an investor. You’re an investor. The folks watching are investors, and there’s an incredible amount of uncertainty right now: Tariffs, the widening out of equity markets away from Mag 7 [and] geopolitical issues,” the Goldman Sachs chief transformation officer told anchor Bob Pisani on CNBC’s “ETF Edge.”
Lake joined Goldman Sachs last summer. According to the firm’s press release, it was for a newly created role aimed at expanding its investment strategies. Previously, Lake headed the global ETF business at JPMorgan Chase
“The buffer products are designed to help protect people to the downside while also allowing them to participate to the upside,” he said. “The way they’re designed, is they’ll protect from down 5% to 15% while still allowing you to participate upwards of 5% to 7%. And, then those reset on a quarterly basis.”
Lake suggests the buffer ETFs use approaches that have strong track records.
“These are… tried and true strategies that have been used by investors for decades now,” he said.
The Goldman Sachs U.S. Large Cap Buffer 3 ETF is down about 3% since it started trading on March 4. The S&P 500 is off almost 4% in the same time frame.
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Americans reported losing $5.7 billion to investment scams in 2024, according to the Federal Trade Commission. The typical victim lost more than $9,000 on average.
“Pig-butchering scams” are a common investment fraud whereby scammers develop a relationship with victims, entice them to invest money and then swindle them.
There are three common signs of fraud that can help people avoid being duped.
South_agency | E+ | Getty Images
Consumers lost $5.7 billion to investment scams in 2024 — more than in any other type of fraud and up 24% from 2023, according to new data from the Federal Trade Commission.
Investment scams generally involve claims that a consumer will get big returns by investing in a hot new moneymaking scheme, according to the FTC.
Most people — 79% — who reported an investment scam to the FTC lost money, with the typical victim losing more than $9,000 on average, the agency said.
Since FTC data is based on consumer reports of fraud, the true scope of investment fraud is likely much higher after factoring in people who don’t step forward.
“These scams are becoming a really huge problem for consumers,” said John Breyault, the National Consumers League’s vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud.
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AI, cryptocurrency contribute to investment fraud
Common investment frauds include “pig-butchering” scams, a name that references the practice of fattening a pig before slaughter.
The fraudsters often contact victims out of nowhere — perhaps via text, social media or a dating app — to try to develop relationships and gain trust before pitching investment opportunities that supposedly yield high returns, often in virtual assets such as cryptocurrency, experts said.
Though the investments may seem legitimate, criminals eventually disappear with the consumers’ money.
It has gotten easier to commit these and other related frauds as artificial intelligence has helped make criminals more convincing, such as in using deepfakes, Breyault said. Deepfakes are manipulated videos or other images or sounds in which people can say and do things that seem real but are not.
Organized crime networks have also established scam operations centers across Southeast Asia, in countries including Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The centers are staffed by thousands of people, often illegally trafficked and forced to carry out these investment schemes globally, it said.
Criminal networks often use cryptocurrency to facilitate pig-butchering frauds because it lets them “move substantial funds easily, cheaply, and without much fear of detection,” researchers at the University of Texas at Austin wrote in a recent research paper.
How to reduce investment fraud risk
While there’s no “silver bullet” to protect against fraud, there are ways consumers can reduce their risk, Breyault said. Here are three characteristics that run through many frauds, he said:
Urgency. Be wary of any pitch that has a form of urgency attached to it, Breyault said. The FTC warns that scammers “want you to act before you have time to think. … They might threaten to arrest you, sue you, take away your driver’s or business license, or deport you. They might say your computer is about to be corrupted.”
Unusual payment method. Scammers often ask victims to pay in specific or unusual ways, Breyault said. “They often insist that you can only pay by using cryptocurrency, wiring money through a company like MoneyGram or Western Union, using a payment app, or putting money on a gift card and then giving them the numbers on the back of the card,” the FTC said.
Isolation. Scammers will try to isolate victims so they don’t tell other people about the circumstances who might alert them that it’s a scam, Breyault said. They might say things like, “‘No one will believe you if you tell them about this,’ or ‘the cops will come get you if you report it,’ or ‘your loved ones will be in danger,'” Breyault said. More
Southwest will start charging for checked bags for the first time in its 50 years of flying.
Thousands of Southwest customers complained about the loss of the free checked bags.
Southwest shares jumped this week after it announced the fees, while its rivals’ stock prices dropped.
Passengers check in for Southwest Airlines flights at Chicago Midway International Airport on Feb. 18, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Almost nothing is guaranteed in life. Certainly not weather, electricity, health, tariffs or eggs. But for more than 50 years, American consumers could count on Southwest Airlines letting them check bags for free.
Dallas-based Southwest is ending the policy in May. Customers are not happy.
“It was the only reason I flew Southwest,” said MaKensey Kaye Alford, a 21-year-old singer and actress who lives near Birmingham, Alabama.
Alford, who is planning to move to New York City later this year, said she would “definitely” consider taking another airline now.
Southwest’s customer-friendly policies have survived recessions, oil price spikes and even the Covid-19 pandemic, winning it years of goodwill and a loyal following, even as it has grown. No other airline carries more people in the United States than Southwest.
Now, the airline with an unrivaled streak of profitability (its almost never posted an annual loss) is under pressure to increase profits as big competitors outpace the airline. So it’s backpedaling off of years of banishing the thought that they would charge customers for bags, adding to other business-model tweaks like assigned seating that give it more in common with all other airlines.
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Errol Joseph, 36, a sales consultant who lives in New York and Dallas, said he would now consider flying on Delta Air Lines if the price is the same as Southwest because its planes have seatback screens, unlike Southwest. Joseph added that with baggage policy change, there’s “pretty much no reason to be loyal.”
The bag policy had been around longer than most women were able to get credit cards on their own without a man’s signature. But those days are over. No more freebies, America.
Retailers, restaurants and airlines are among the businesses that have been pulling back on free perks, from complimentary birthday coffees to free package returns, since the pandemic ended.
Increasingly, airline perks are only available for loyalty program members or customers who buy a more expensive ticket.
Delta offers customers free Wi-Fi on board, but only for those who have signed up for its SkyMiles loyalty program. United Airlines is making a similar move, meanwhile, installing equipment on its planes so customers can soon connect to Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite Wi-Fi for free if they are members of the airline’s MileagePlus program.
It typically takes real financial pressure for companies to return to giveaways, but it’s not unprecedented. Starbucks, for example, got rid of upcharges for dairy alternatives to attract customers to try to reverse a sales slump.
Customers vs. investors
Passengers check in for Southwest Airlines flights at Chicago Midway International Airport in Chicago on Feb. 18, 2025.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Southwest’s decision pits investors against customers.
Activist hedge fund and, as of last year, big Southwest shareholder Elliott Investment Management has been increasing pressure on the airline to raise its profits as rivals like Delta and United have pulled ahead. Elliott pushed for faster changes at the carrier, which has been long hesitant to change, so it could increase revenue. The firm last year won five board seats in a settlement with Southwest.
In fact, after Southwest unveiled the bag shift and other policy changes, its shares rose close to 9% this week, while Delta, United and American, each fell more than 11%. CEOs of all the carriers raised concerns about weaker-than-expected travel demand, but Southwest bucked the trend, as it expects the changes to add hundreds of millions of dollars to its bottom line.
“Shareholder activism is reshaping LUV into a company that we believe investors will eventually gravitate to,” wrote Seaport Research Partners airline analyst Dan McKenzie in a note Wednesday as he raised his price target on Southwest’s shares to $39 thanks to the policy changes even though “macro backdrop is glum.”
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Southwest Airlines vs. Delta Air Lines and American Airlines
The decision to ditch the two-free-checked bags is part of the airline’s big profit-seeking makeover in which it is shedding other long-standing offerings like open-seating and single-class cabins for seat assignments and pricier extra legroom options.
It will also start offering a no-frills, no-changes basic economy ticket. Flight credits will also soon have expiration dates. Last month, Southwest had its first-ever mass layoff, cutting about 15% of corporate jobs. It has also slashed unprofitable flying.
Air travel hasn’t stood still over the last half century, and while it’s held onto many core tenets, neither has Southwest. It has gradually made changes over the years, starting to sell things like early boarding, for example. And with air travel breaking new records, assigned seating is necessary for both customers and to make the jobs of employees easier, Southwest executives have argued.
About-face
Charging for checked bags was something Southwest leaders repeatedly said would cost it more than it could make. (U.S. carriers brought in more than $7 billion in baggage fees in 2023.)
In a presentation at an investor day last September, Southwest said it would gain between $1 billion and $1.5 billion from charging for bags but lose $1.8 billion of market share.
Southwest executives said that’s changed.
Hours after breaking the news to customers, CEO Bob Jordan said at a JPMorgan industry conference on Tuesday that “in contrast to our previous analysis, actual customer booking behavior through our new booking channels such as metasearch, did not show that we are getting the same benefit from our bundled offering with free bags, which has led us to update the assumptions.”
Jordan added that the carrier has new executives with “direct experience implementing bag fees at multiple airlines, and that’s also helped further validate the new assumptions.”
Maverick airline’s shift
But thousands joined in consumers’ cri de coeur.
Southwest posted on Instagram on Thursday, two days after its bombshell announcement, saying “It’s not like we traded Luka,” a nod to the shocking February trade of Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. As of Friday afternoon, the post, which also included information about the change, got more than 14,000 replies, far more than couple of hundred responses the account usually gets.
“Taking a screen shot of this as it will be the thumbnail for the harvard business review case study of destroying a brand an entire company,” replied Instagram user rappid_exposure.
Frances Frei, a professor of technology and operations management at Harvard Business School, said that, indeed, no other company is likely as studied as Southwest.
“I sure hope this isn’t a case of activist investors coming in and insisting on a set of decisions that they won’t be around to have to endure,” she said. “Great organizations get built over time. It doesn’t take very long to ruin an organization, and I really don’t want this to be an example of that.”
Betting the house
Southwest Airlines napkins have long touted the carrier’s free bag policy, as well as other perks.
Zac Jankovsky
Southwest’s two checked bags-fly-free policy officially ends May 28 but for now the slogan is still found on board, printed on cocktail napkins.
There will be exceptions: Customers who have a Southwest Airlines co-branded credit card can get one bag for free, and customers in its top tiers of service (read: pricier tickets) or its top-tier loyalty program members will get one to two free checked bags.
Whether customers abandon Southwest or are simply reacting to the change remains to be seen.
The CEOs of Delta, United and Spirit this week said they see an opportunity to win over customers who might turn away from Southwest.
Many travelers won’t have a lot of other options, however, with so much consolidation among U.S. carriers and stronghold hubs, though they might have to venture to other airports.
Southwest has a roughly 73% share at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, a more than 83% share in San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport, and 89% share in Long Beach, California, according to aviation-data firm Cirium.
Carrying on
The real test, Harvard’s Frei said, will be whether the bag change will slow down Southwest’s operation, with more customers bringing carry-on bags on board to avoid the checked luggage fees.
“I just fear the cost is being underestimated,” she said. “It’s real operational harm to Southwest if they go slower.”
Southwest is already preparing its employees for an onslaught of customer luggage at the gate.
Just after its announcement on Tuesday, Southwest told its employees in a memo that customers will “undoubtedly carry on more luggage than before.”
Gate agents will receive mobile bag-tag printers “reducing the need for string bag tags” and the company will design new carry-on size guides so customers can see if their luggage fits as a carry on, according to a staff memo sent by Justin Jones, EVP of operations, and Adam Decaire, senior vice president of network planning, a copy of which was seen by CNBC.
The airline also plans to speed up retrofits of its Boeing 737-800s and Max aircraft with bigger overhead bins.
Frei said not charging for bags, unlike the Costco $1.50 hot dog, is not a loss leader, something a company sells at a loss just to win over customers who might buy more expensive, and profitable, items.
As much as it’s been beloved by customers, the checked bag policy also had a helped the airline turn planes around faster.
“The reason isn’t because it’s kinder to customers. It’s because it’s a fast turnaround airline,” she said. “If I charge for bags, you will be more likely to carry more luggage on board. And when you carry more luggage on board, I lose my fast turnaround advantage.”
Southwest is confident that it’s prepared for an increase in gate-checked bags and onboard luggage.
“We have a series of work streams that are underway with our with our current operations, to make this not impact our turn times,” COO Andrew Watterson said in an interview.
Time will tell how it shakes out. For now, we have the $1.50 Costco hot dogs. More
Executives from across the retail and travel industries are bracing for a slowdown in demand amid President Donald Trump’s trade war.
CEOs of strong companies like Delta, Walmart and Dick’s Sporting Goods have struck cautious tones in recent weeks, leading them to cut their guidance or give weaker-than-expected outlooks.
Compounding the issue is a slowing job market, persistent inflation and sliding consumer confidence.
Shoppers cast shadows as they carry their bags along the waterfront in Portland, Maine, U.S, December 26, 2024.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
It’s not just Walmart.
The leaders of companies that serve everyone from penny-pinching grocery shoppers to first-class travelers are seeing cracks in demand, a shift after resilient consumers propped up the U.S. economy for years despite prolonged inflation. On top of high interest rates and persistent inflation, CEOs are now grappling with how to handle new hurdles like on-again, off-again tariffs, mass government layoffs and worsening consumer sentiment.
Across earnings calls and investor presentations in recent weeks, retailers and other consumer-facing businesses warned that first-quarter sales were coming in softer than expected and the rest of the year might be tougher than Wall Street thought. Many of the executives blamed unseasonably cool weather and a “dynamic” macroeconomic environment, but the early days of President Donald Trump’s second term have brought new challenges — perhaps none greater than trying to plan a global business at a time when his administration shifts its trade policies by the hour.
Economists largely expect Trump’s new tariffs on goods from China, Canada and Mexico will raise prices for consumers and dampen spending at a time when inflation remains higher than the Federal Reserve’s target. In February, consumer confidence — which can help to signal how much shoppers are willing to shell out — saw the biggest drop since 2021. A separate consumer sentiment measure for March also came in worse than expected.
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NYSE Arca Airline Index versus the S&P 500.
Another sign of weakness has been in air travel. The sector, especially large international airlines, had been a bright spot following the pandemic, with consumers proving again and again that they wouldn’t give up trips even in the face of the biggest jump inflation in more than four decades. This week, however, the CEOs of the four largest U.S. airlines — United, American, Delta and Southwest — said they are seeing a slowdown in demand this quarter. American, Delta and Southwest cut their first-quarter forecasts.
Plus, the strong U.S. job market of recent years is showing early signs of stress as job growth slows and unemployment ticks up.
These trends have thrown cold water on what was a red-hot stock market and sparked new fears about a potential recession, sending the S&P 500 tumbling 10% from its record highs in February, though it had recovered significant ground by Friday afternoon.
Now, as investors and executives grow more worried about the impact tariffs will have on consumer spending and fret about an administration they had high hopes for just a few months ago, even the strongest companies are striking cautious tones as the weaker ones get even louder.
Take Walmart, the retail industry’s de facto leader, which has spent the last year turning an uncertain economy into fuel for growth as it courted higher-income consumers. When Walmart announced fiscal fourth-quarter earnings last month, its stock fell after it warned that profit growth would be slower than expected in the year ahead. It was a rare warning sign from a company that tends to thrive in a weaker economy, and an indication that it’s expecting consumers to pull back from higher-margin discretionary goods in favor of essentials like milk and paper towels in the year ahead.
“We don’t want to get out over our skis here. There’s a lot of the year to play out,” Walmart’s finance chief, John David Rainey, told analysts when discussing the company’s outlook. “It’s prudent to have an outlook that is somewhat measured.”
Charly Triballeau | Afp | Getty Images
Ed Bastian, chief executive of Delta Air Lines – the most profitable U.S. carrier that has reaped the rewards of big spenders in recent years – struck a similar tone after it slashed its earnings and revenue forecast for the first quarter. In an interview Monday on CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” Bastian said that consumer confidence has weakened and that both leisure and business customers have pulled back on bookings, which led it to cut its guidance.
“Consumers in a discretionary business do not like uncertainty,” said Bastian. “And while we do believe this will be a period of time that we pass through, it is also something that we need to understand and get to calmer waters.”
To be sure, it wasn’t just fewer people booking trips that led the airline to cut its first-quarter forecast. Questions about air safety compounded the problem after two major airline accidents, including Delta’s own crash landing in Toronto, in which no one died.
Beyond Delta, rival United said it will retire 21 aircraft early, a move that aims to cut costs.
“We have also seen weakness in the demand market,” United CEO Scott Kirby said at Tuesday’s JPMorgan airline industry conference. “It started with government. Government is 2% of our business. Government adjacent, all the other consultants and contracts that go along with that are probably another 2% to 3%. That’s running down about 50% right now. So a pretty material impact in the short term.”
The airline has seen some of that dynamic “bleed over” into the domestic leisure market, as well, Kirby added. He said the company is already looking at where it will cut flights, eyeing a big drop in traffic from Canada into the U.S. and in markets that were popular with government workers.
American Airlines cut its first-quarter earnings forecast and said in addition to demand pressures, bookings were hurt after a deadly midair collision of an Army helicopter with one of its regional jets in Washington, D.C., in January.
The company also felt the pullback in government travel and associated trips like those for contractors.
“We know that there’s some follow-on effect in terms of leisure travel associated with that as well,” said CEO Robert Isom.
Airline executives were upbeat about longer-term demand in 2025, however.
Other strong companies, such as Dick’s Sporting Goods, E.l.f. Beauty and Abercrombie & Fitch, also issued weak forecasts in recent weeks, though they indicated they were feeling positive about the second half of the year.
“I do think it’s just a bit of an uncertain world out there right now,” Ed Stack, chairman of Dick’s Sporting Goods, told CNBC when asked about the company’s guidance. “What’s going to happen from a tariff standpoint? You know, if tariffs are put in place and prices rise the way that they might, what’s going to happen with the consumer?”
Over the last year, companies like United, Walmart and Abercrombie have managed to outperform the S&P 500, even as shoppers reduced discretionary spending, so this change in commentary marks a major shift. It’s a warning sign that shoppers could be starting to crack, and that even excellent execution is no match for tariff-induced price increases after four years of historic inflation.
Meanwhile, the companies that have already spent the last year calling out uncertain consumer dynamics are sounding even more worried.
“Our customers continue to report that their financial situation has worsened over the last year, as they have been negatively impacted by ongoing inflation. Many of our customers report they only have enough money for basic essentials, with some noting that they have had to sacrifice even on the necessities,” the CEO of Dollar General, Todd Vasos, said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday, adding customers are expecting value and convenience “more than ever.” The worsening consumer outlook has compounded the company’s own internal challenges.
“As we enter 2025,” Vasos continued. “We are not anticipating improvement in the macro environment, particularly for our core customer.”
Elsewhere in the retail industry, American Eagle on Tuesday warned that cold weather led to a slower-than-expected start to the first quarter, but said it wasn’t just temperatures. The apparel retailer specifically called out “less robust demand” and said it’s taking steps to reduce expenses and manage inventory as it braces for what’s still to come.
“[Consumers] have the fear of the unknown. Not just tariffs, not just inflation, we see the government cutting people off. They don’t know how that’s going to affect them. They see programs being cut, they don’t know how that’s going to affect them,” said CEO Jay Schottenstein. “And when people don’t know what they don’t know – they get very conservative … it makes everyone a little nervous.”
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Last week at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, CEOs of European telecoms firms called on regulators to make it easier for them to combine their operations with other businesses.
Currently, there are numerous telco players operating in different European countries.
However, telco bosses say they’d be able to compete more effectively with only three main players per market — a model that’s become the standard in places like the U.S, China and India.
The Deutsche Telekom pavilion at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.
Angel Garcia | Bloomberg | Getty Images
BARCELONA — Europe’s telecommunication firms are ramping up calls for more industry consolidation to help the region compete more effectively with superpowers like the U.S. and China on key technologies like 5G and artificial intelligence.
Last week at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) trade show in Barcelona, CEOs of several telecoms firms called on regulators to make it easier for them to combine their operations with other businesses and reduce the overall number of carriers operating across the continent.
Currently, there are numerous telco players operating in multiple EU countries and non-EU members such as the U.K. However, telco chiefs told CNBC this situation is untenable, as they’re unable to compete effectively when it comes to price and network quality.
“If we’re going to invest in technology, in deep know-how, and bring drastic change, positive drastic change in Europe — like other large technological companies have done in the U.S. or we’re seeing today in China — we need scale,” Marc Murtra, CEO of Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, told CNBC’s Karen Tso in an interview.
“To be able to get scale, we need to consolidate a fragmented market like the telecoms market in Europe,” Murtra added. “And for that, we need a regulation that allows us to consolidate. So what we do ask is: please unleash us. Let us gain scale. Let us invest in technology and bring upon productive change.”
Christel Heydemann, CEO of French carrier Orange, said that while some mega-deal activity is starting to gather pace in Europe, more needs to be done to guarantee the continent’s competitiveness on the world stage.
Last year, Orange closed a deal to merge its Spanish operations with local mobile network provider Masmovil. Meanwhile, more recently, the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority approved a £15 billion ($19 billion) merger between telecoms firms Vodafone and Three in the U.K., subject to certain conditions.
“We’ve been actively driving consolidation in Europe,” Orange’s Heydemann told CNBC. “We see things changing now. There’s still a lot of hope.”
However, she added: “I think there’s a lot of pressure in Europe from the business environment on our political leaders to get things to change. But really, things have not yet changed.”
During a fiery keynote address on Monday, the CEO of German telco Deutsche Telekom, Tim Höttges, said that other telco markets such as the U.S. and India have condensed in size to only a handful of players.
The American telco industry is dominated by its three largest mobile network operators, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. T-Mobile is majority-owned by Deutsche Telekom.
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A chart comparing the share price performance of T-Mobile, America’s largest telco by market cap, with that of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom and France’s Orange.
“We need a reform of the of the competition policy,” Höttges said onstage at MWC. “We have to be allowed to consolidate our activities.”
“There is no reason that every market has to operate with three or four operators,” he added. “We should build a European single market … because, if we cannot increase our consumer prices, if we cannot charge the over-the-top players, we have to get efficiencies out of the scale which we created.”
“Over-the-top” refers to media platforms such as Netflix that deliver content over the internet, bypassing traditional cable networks.
Europe’s competitiveness in focus
From AI to advances to next-generation 5G networks, Europe’s telecoms firms have been investing heavily into new technologies in a bid to move beyond the legacy model of laying down cables that enable internet connectivity — a business model that’s earned them the pejorative term “dumb pipes.”
However, this costly endeavor of modernization has happened in tandem with sluggish revenue growth and an inability for the sector to effectively monetize its networks to the same degree that technology giants have done with the emergence of mobile applications and, more recently, generative AI tools.
At MWC, many mobile network operators talked up their usage of AI to improve network quality, better serve their customers and gain market share from competitors.
Still, Europe’s telco bosses say they could be accelerating their digital transformation journeys if they were allowed to combine with other large multinational players.
“There’s this real focus now around European competitiveness,” Luke Kehoe, industry analyst for Europe at network intelligence firm Ookla, told CNBC on the sidelines of MWC last week. “There’s a goal to mobilize policy to improve telecoms networks.”
In January, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, issued its so-called “Competitiveness Compass” to EU lawmakers.
The document calls for, among other things, “revised guidelines for assessing mergers so that innovation, resilience and the investment intensity of competition in certain strategic sectors are given adequate weight in light of the European economy’s acute needs.”
Meanwhile, last year former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi released a long-awaited report that urged radical reforms to the EU through a new industrial strategy to ensure its competitiveness.
It also calls for a new Digital Networks Act that would look to improve incentives for telcos to build next-generation mobile networks, reduce compliance costs, improve connectivity for end-users, and harmonize EU policy across the network spectrum, or the range of radio frequencies used for wireless communication.
“The common theme and the mood music is certainly reducing ex-ante regulation and to foster what they would call a more competitive environment which is an environment more conducive of consolidation,” Ookla’s Kehoe told CNBC. “Moving forward, I think that there will be more consolidation.”
However, the telco industry has some way to go toward seeing transformational cross-border mergers and acquisitions, Kehoe added.
For many telco industry analysts, the demands for increased consolidation is nothing new.
“European telco CEOs have never been shy about calling for consolidation and growth-friendly regulation,” Nik Willetts, CEO of the telco industry association TM Forum, told CNBC. “But regulation is only one piece of the puzzle.”
“In the last 12 months we’ve seen a new energy from our members in Europe to get on with the huge task to transform themselves: simplifying, modernizing and automating their operations and legacy tech.”
“This will make it possible to rapidly adapt to new customer needs and market realities, whether building new partnerships, undergoing M&A or delayering integrated businesses – all trends we expect to reach new heights over the next 24 months,” he added. More
Chinese videostreaming platform iQiyi said Thursday it plans to open its first theme park this year, based on characters from its own shows.
The forthcoming “iQiyi Land” is set to open in the city of Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, just over two hours from Shanghai by high-speed train.
Legoland is opening its first China resort in Shanghai this summer, while Warner Bros. Discovery last month announced it is developing a “Harry Potter Studio Tour” in Shanghai with a projected opening of 2027.
Chinese videostreaming company iQiyi announced March 13, 2025, it will open a theme park later in the year in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province.
BEIJING — Chinese videostreaming platform iQiyi announced Thursday it plans later this year to open its first full-fledged theme park in China based on characters from its own shows.
The forthcoming “iQiyi Land” is set to open in the city of Yangzhou in Jiangsu province, just over two hours from Shanghai by high-speed train. The company said the theme park will include seven types of attractions — including immersive theater, interactive film sets and experiences that use virtual reality — largely based on characters from iQiyi’s films and television dramas.
It’s the latest company to bet that local consumers will spend more on experiences, despite tepid retail sales.
Legoland is opening its first China resort in Shanghai this summer, while Warner Bros. Discovery last month announced it is opening a “Harry Potter Studio Tour” in 2027 in the same city. Chinese toy company Pop Mart opened a themed “Pop Land” in Beijing in late 2023, which has become the most popular attraction in the city’s business district, according to rankings from Dianping.
IQiyi’s planned theme park builds on the company’s recent success with VR-specific attractions.
The company has developed technology that combines VR headsets with moving platforms — giving visitors the impression that they are walking, riding on boats or sitting in a flying carriage. That means a theme park-like experience can be compressed into a space as small as a square just 57 feet long.
Since iQiyi’s first dedicated VR experience opened in Shanghai two years ago, the company has worked with business partners to open more than 40 locations in at least 20 Chinese cities. One VR experience based on iQiyi’s “Strange Tales of the Tang Dynasty: To the West” gained more than 100,000 visitors in its first year of opening, according to the company.
VR, gaming and artificial intelligence have enabled the emergence of “distributed” theme parks that are more compact, interactive and able to iterate content more quickly, Hang Zhang, senior vice president at iQiyi, said in a Chinese statement translated by CNBC.
He said some of the VR-based experiences will first be released in iQiyi Land before they’re launched in other venues.
IQiyi shares closed nearly 3% higher in U.S. trading Thursday and are up 14% for the year so far.
Post-Covid growth
Mainland China’s theme park revenue is forecast to exceed 480 billion yuan ($67 billion) this year, with more than 500 million visitors, according to data shared by the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. That would be up exponentially from 30.39 billion yuan recorded across 86 major theme parks in mainland China in 2023, just after Covid-19 pandemic controls ended, the data showed.
Parks are increasingly using a mix of virtual reality to engage guests, while using AI tools to manage crowds, the association said. It added that parks are also combining global intellectual property franchises with domestic narratives in China.
The association announced Wednesday that the head of Disney Parks International would speak at its Asia expo this summer in Shanghai.
Disney, whose Disneyland in Shanghai opened in 2016, reported a 28% year-on-year increase in international parks and experiences operating income in the quarter ended Dec. 28, in contrast with a 5% decline in the U.S.
Comcast, whose Universal Studios Beijing opened in 2021, said higher revenue at its international theme parks offset lower guest attendance at its U.S. parks in the fourth quarter.
A tough environment
Tourism has been a rare bright spot in China’s otherwise lackluster consumer market. The consumer price index, an indicator of domestic demand, rose by just 0.2% last year while the tourism component increased by 3.5%.
China’s plan to boost consumption this year called specifically for developing the experience economy. IQiyi has previously worked with a local tourism board to produce a television drama set in a remote part of China, drawing visitors.
However, competition in content remains fierce. IQiyi reported an 8% drop in 2024 revenue to 29.23 billion yuan, reversing a 10% increase the prior year.
Theme park projects can also face delays.
A Legoland in western China’s Sichuan province was originally scheduled to open by 2023. When CNBC contacted operator Merlin Entertainments about the project, the company only emphasized the summer opening of Legoland in Shanghai this summer.
Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of CNBC.
Clarification: This story was updated to reflect the correct title of the iQiyi drama, “Strange Tales of the Tang Dynasty: To the West.” A previous version was based on a provided translation, which was inaccurate. More
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