Shares of Kanzhun Limited, the parent company of China’s leading online recruitment platform Boss Zhipin, surged 16.97%, or $2.76, to $19.06 as of 12:13 p.m. EDT Wednesday, extending gains from the company’s second-quarter earnings report that showed double-digit revenue growth, record operating margins and a sharp jump in net income.

Kanzhun reported second-quarter 2026 revenue of 2.4 billion yuan, up 14% from the same period a year earlier, according to MarketBeat, as the company continued benefiting from user base expansion and improved monetization of higher-value recruitment services on its platform. Income from operations increased 32.6% to 863.2 million yuan, according to QuiverQuant, with the company’s adjusted operating margin reaching a record 43.8%, up 1.9 percentage points from the prior year, according to Benzinga’s transcript of the company’s earnings call.

Net income surged 173% year over year to 1.9 billion yuan, though that dramatic increase was significantly boosted by roughly 1.5 billion yuan in investment income tied to fair-value gains from a portfolio company that completed an initial public offering in January 2026, according to MarketBeat. Excluding those investment gains and share-based compensation expenses, adjusted net income rose a more modest but still solid 9% to 1.03 billion yuan. On a per-share basis, Kanzhun reported earnings of $0.33, beating analyst estimates of $0.29 by nearly 14%, according to Public.com.

Kanzhun’s gross margin improved to 87% during the quarter, a gain the company attributed to AI-driven operational efficiencies and lower app store commission fees, according to Yahoo Finance’s summary of the earnings call highlights. The company’s AI-powered services, including AI-driven interview tools and automated resume filtering, contributed directly to those operational efficiencies while also supporting higher customer spending on the platform, according to Benzinga’s transcript.

Despite the strong headline results, the company flagged some near-term profitability pressure tied to a significant marketing push. Sales and marketing expenses surged 38% year over year, driven by a sponsorship tied to the FIFA World Cup, a cost that weighed on near-term profitability even as it likely contributed to the platform’s continued user growth, according to Yahoo Finance. Operating cash flow declined 10% year over year, a drop the company attributed to higher advertising spending, increased tax payments and lower interest income during the quarter.

Kanzhun continued its substantial shareholder return program during the period. The company’s board approved an annual dividend distribution of $230 million and completed $300 million in share repurchases, bringing total shareholder returns for 2026 to $530 million, a figure exceeding 100% of the company’s adjusted net income from the previous year, according to Benzinga’s transcript of the earnings call.

Looking ahead, Kanzhun issued third-quarter revenue guidance of 2.41 billion to 2.5 billion yuan, representing year-over-year growth of 11.4% to 15.6%, a pace that management itself acknowledged was somewhat slower than the second quarter’s 14% growth rate, according to Yahoo Finance, potentially signaling emerging macroeconomic headwinds within China’s broader recruitment and employment market. The company characterized broader consumption and hiring demand across China as “broadly stable but not robust,” reflecting continued caution regarding the pace of economic recovery even as Kanzhun’s own platform metrics continued showing healthy growth.

The company reported 7.2 million paid enterprise customers over the trailing 12 months ended June 30, up 10.8% from a year earlier, according to QuiverQuant, indicating continued expansion of Kanzhun’s core business customer base even amid the broader cautious macroeconomic backdrop the company described.

Beyond its core domestic Chinese recruitment platform, Kanzhun outlined longer-term international growth ambitions during the earnings call. According to MarketBeat, the company’s overseas business, branded OfferToday, is targeting $100 million to $115 million in revenue within approximately five years, with potential expansion planned across additional markets in Asia and Europe. Management also identified longer-term opportunities in developing countries with younger populations and orderly economic development, specifically citing Vietnam, Argentina and Brazil as examples of markets the company views as attractive for future expansion.

Kanzhun’s strategic focus going forward centers on two complementary growth avenues, according to Benzinga’s transcript: continuing to expand user penetration in China’s lower-tier cities, where recruitment platform adoption remains comparatively lower, while simultaneously increasing monetization of its existing user base in the country’s larger first- and second-tier cities, where the platform already maintains stronger market penetration.

Despite Wednesday’s sharp rally, Kanzhun’s stock performance over the broader year-to-date period has remained challenged. According to a separate Zacks Investment Research report cited by Yahoo Finance, Kanzhun shares had lost approximately 24.2% since the beginning of 2026 prior to the earnings-driven rally, significantly underperforming the S&P 500’s 11.8% gain over the same period, reflecting broader investor caution toward Chinese technology and internet stocks throughout much of the year despite the company’s continued underlying operational growth.

Kanzhun, founded by Zhao Peng on Jan. 16, 2014, and headquartered in Beijing, operates its recruitment platform under the consumer-facing brand name Boss Zhipin, providing both core recruitment matching services and a range of value-added tools for job seekers navigating China’s competitive employment market. The stock’s 52-week high stands at $25.26, according to Public.com, meaning Wednesday’s rally, while significant, has still left shares well below their peak levels over the trailing year.

With Kanzhun’s continued AI-driven efficiency gains, expanding enterprise customer base and substantial shareholder return commitments offsetting near-term margin pressure from World Cup-related marketing spending and a somewhat more cautious third-quarter growth outlook, investors are likely to continue watching closely whether the company’s operational momentum can offset the broader macroeconomic caution management described regarding China’s overall hiring and consumption environment heading into the back half of 2026.

KATHMANDU, Nepal — The death toll from a massive flash flood that tore through Nepal’s northern border region with Tibet climbed to at least 95 on Wednesday, with nearly 400 people, including three U.S. nationals, still listed as missing, according to Nepali authorities.

Nepal Police spokesman Abi Narayan Kafle confirmed the rising toll to multiple news outlets Wednesday. “So far 95 deaths have been reported,” Kafle said, according to Al Jazeera, adding that 28 police personnel were also among those unaccounted for. Nepal’s prime minister’s office separately confirmed the death toll of 95, though officials had not yet released information regarding the nationalities of the victims, according to CBS News.

The scale of the missing has drawn significant international attention given the large number of foreign tourists caught in the disaster. According to the Nepal Tourism Board, 384 travelers were reported missing as of Wednesday, including 291 foreign nationals from countries such as the United Kingdom, the United States, India and Malaysia, according to Al Jazeera. CBS News reported that at least three U.S. nationals were among 341 foreigners listed as missing, citing information gathered from tour companies operating in the affected region.

The disaster’s origins trace back to a sequence of natural events that unfolded within minutes of each other early Wednesday morning. According to CNN, the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a magnitude 4.4 earthquake along the Nepal-China border, north of Kathmandu, at 8:37 a.m. local time. Around the same time, what CNN described as an avalanche of ice and rock, more accurately characterized as a landslide, tore down a mountainside and into the Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhote Koshi River.

Saswata Sanyal, of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu, a regional climate organization, explained how that initial event triggered the broader catastrophe. The avalanche likely “blocked the (Bhotekoshi River) and released a sudden surge downstream,” Sanyal said, describing the chain reaction as a case of “cascading hazards,” in which events high in the icy mountains can rapidly translate into devastating flooding for towns and villages located far downstream.

Nepal’s Foreign Minister Shishir Khanal offered a similar account of the disaster’s cause. According to CBS News, Khanal said the flash flood was caused by an earthquake that triggered a large landslide, which in turn blocked the Bhote Koshi River before releasing a catastrophic surge of water.

The destruction has been extensive and widespread across the affected region. A health worker in Rasuwa district, one of the hardest-hit areas, described the scene to The National. “There is devastation everywhere we look. The settlements next to the river have been completely swept away,” the health worker said. CBS News reported that videos broadcast by regional news outlets and shared widely on social media showed violent torrents of water surging through mountain valleys and passes, tearing down bridges and dams and sweeping away entire buildings in their path.

Nepal’s critical infrastructure has suffered significant damage as a result of the flooding. The Nepal Electricity Authority confirmed that six of its major hydropower and transmission facilities were damaged in the disaster, according to CBS News. The National separately reported that the flooding disrupted electricity supplies affecting more than 12% of Nepal’s total national hydropower generation capacity, underscoring the scale of infrastructure impact extending well beyond the immediate loss of life and missing persons.

Nepal Police spokesman Kafle acknowledged that officials remain uncertain about the full scope of the destruction as search and rescue operations continue. “We do not exactly know the extent of damage, but the flood is big, and it could have damaged many settlements,” Kafle told the French news agency AFP, according to CBS News.

Across the border in China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, the disaster has similarly caused significant loss of life. According to CNN’s live coverage of the crisis, three people have been confirmed killed in Tibet, with an additional 265 people reported missing, according to Chinese authorities. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for “all-out” search and rescue efforts in response to the disaster, alongside calls for strengthening early warning systems to help prevent secondary disasters as recovery efforts continue, according to The National.

Officials in Nepal have cautioned that the confirmed death toll is likely to continue rising as recovery operations progress and the true scale of the disaster becomes clearer. According to CNN, authorities expect the toll to increase further once floodwaters recede and search teams are able to reach areas that remain inaccessible due to damaged roads, bridges and communication infrastructure throughout the affected mountainous border region.

The disaster adds to Nepal’s long and difficult history with monsoon-season flooding and landslide disasters, a recurring seasonal threat across the Himalayan nation. While Wednesday’s specific catastrophe was triggered by an earthquake-induced landslide rather than direct monsoon rainfall, Nepal has repeatedly faced major flooding disasters in recent years tied to its mountainous terrain, seasonal weather patterns and, according to climate researchers, an increasing frequency and severity of such events linked to broader climate change.

With search and rescue operations continuing on both sides of the Nepal-China border, and hundreds of people, including a significant number of foreign tourists, still unaccounted for, officials in both countries have indicated the coming days will remain critical for locating survivors and beginning to assess the full human and infrastructure toll of the disaster. International governments, including the United States, United Kingdom, India and Malaysia, are expected to continue closely monitoring the search efforts given the number of their citizens reported among the missing, as Nepali and Chinese authorities work to restore access to the remote, heavily damaged border region and provide clearer information regarding the fate of those still unaccounted for.

The Yorkshire firm made a statement to the Stock Exchange after Peel published its offer document

Developers Harworth has reiterated its opposition to a £583m takeover offer by major shareholder Peel Group.

Peel already holds nearly 30% of Harworth’s shares, and earlier this month launched a bid to buy the company’s remaining shares through a subsidiary. The company’s offer of 172.5 per share would see it spend around £417m for the 70% of the company it currently does not own.

Manchester-based Peel has now published its offer document, arguing that Rotherham-based Harworth’s cash flow profile is increasingly becoming less sustainable, driven partly by the company’s increasing administrative cost base and increasing net finance costs.

It wants Harworth to pivot toward strategic land activities and selective development, which it says has a lower cost base, and argues that Harworth’s strategy of developing land for data centres is “very early stage, highly speculative and unlikely to convert to cash sales or deliver the contribution required to improve the overall returns of the business to an acceptable level within the short to medium term”.

Harworth’s board rejected the takeover bid when it was first announced and has now repeated its stance, saying that “the board is unanimous and unequivocal in its rejection of the offer which, in its view, fundamentally undervalues Harworth and its near and longer-term prospects.”

In a new statement to the Stock Exchange, Harworth said it would set out wider views on the offer by September 9, but in the meantime, it advised shareholders to do nothing on the offer.

Harworth originated as the property wing of UK Coal, and many of its earliest properties were former mining sites in the North and the Midlands. It currently has holdings of more than 15,000 acres across 100 sites, and specialises in developing industrial and logistics developments for sale. It recently said that announced plans to develop a second data centre, saying a deal to sell it could be worth more than the £106m it received for a data centre site sold to Microsoft in Leeds earlier this year.

DENVER – New product innovation abounded at the Newtopia Now tradeshow, held Aug. 18-20. Exhibitors ranged from startups not yet in the market to established brands promoting new concepts ready for market. But as one speaker noted, there is a wide divide between being consumer ready versus retail ready.

Several brands stood out at the show. For example, early-stage brand Lil’ Melts, Austin, Texas, showcased its beef tallow cooking cubes. The cubes are intended to melt quickly, require no scooping and simplify portioning for home cooks.

Boca Raton, Fla.-based startup Notchee introduced a dairy spread promoted as a clean label condiment featuring protein. The perishable spread comes in 5.5-oz glass jars in three varieties: original, garlic herb and date honey.

And GoodBelly from NextFoods, Boulder, Colo., a 20-year-old refrigerated probiotic drink brand debuted For a Clear Mind. The no-added-sugar beverage is formulated to support mental clarity through the gut-brain connection, the company said. It is formulated with L-theanine, green coffee extract, fruit polyphenols and postbiotics.   

While each innovation is unique, that’s not enough to make it in today’s marketplace, said Brian Gould, founder and chief executive officer of TruLife Distribution, Boca Raton, Fla. Retail readiness is becoming just as important as product innovation.

Having a great product is only the first step, Gould said. Retailers are evaluating businesses, not just products. Strong ingredients, attractive packaging and consumer interest are important, but buyers also assess whether a company can consistently deliver product, maintain margins, support demand and become a reliable long-term retail partner.

“Retailers evaluate the entire business behind the product,” Gould said. “Brands need to demonstrate not only what makes their product different, but why it belongs on that retailer’s shelf, who will buy it and how the business will support a successful launch.”

Retailers are evaluating businesses, not just products when considering bringing a new product into its stores.

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While emerging brands have more tools to develop products, build direct-to-consumer audiences and generate online sales, achieving sustainable retail growth requires a different level of preparation and infrastructure, Gould said. For international brands, the challenge is often even greater. Companies entering the US must adapt to different retailer expectations, regulatory requirements, pricing structures and distribution economics.

“Success in another market is valuable validation,” Gould said. “But the US retail ecosystem is unique. Strategies that work elsewhere often require significant localization and preparation before they can succeed here.”

The distinction highlights the difference between being consumer-ready and retail-ready.

“Some of our most productive conversations (at Newtopia Now) were not about whether we liked a product,” Gould said. “They were about what steps would make that product truly compelling to a major US retailer.”

For some brands, the steps may involve refining pricing or positioning. For others, it may include strengthening retail materials, improving operational capabilities or identifying the most appropriate retail channel.

“The goal is not simply to get products in front of more buyers,” Gould said. “It is to ensure the right product reaches the right buyer at the right time.”

Some Bluesky users reported difficulty accessing the social media platform Wednesday, according to outage-tracking service Downdetector, marking at least the third significant disruption the decentralized network has faced this month.

Downdetector posted on its official account on the social platform X that “user reports indicate problems with Bluesky since 11:51 AM EDT,” tagging the post with the hashtag #BlueskyDown and directing affected users to its outage-tracking page. The post had drawn more than 1,600 views within roughly the first hour of being published.

Independent status monitoring offered a somewhat measured picture of Wednesday’s disruption compared with some of Bluesky’s more severe recent outages. According to StatusGator, Bluesky was listed as operational as of a check conducted around noon UTC Wednesday, though the service had logged 35 user-submitted outage reports over the preceding 24-hour period, a notably elevated figure suggesting genuine, if not necessarily platform-wide, connectivity issues affecting at least some portion of Bluesky’s user base.

Wednesday’s reports add to a pattern of recurring instability that has affected Bluesky throughout August. The platform experienced a significant outage Aug. 16, when thousands of users across the United States and other countries, including the UK, Portugal and Canada, reported being unable to load feeds, log in or use the app at all. According to IBTimes UK, complaints on Downdetector began climbing sharply around 10:37 a.m. EDT that day, with reported issues surpassing 2,000 complaints within about an hour. According to Windows Report’s coverage of that same incident, Bluesky’s own status account identified the disruption as affecting accounts connected to a specific server component within its infrastructure, known as the suillus.us-west.host.bsky.network personal data server, suggesting the outage did not affect every account on the platform equally.

Just two days later, on Aug. 18, Bluesky confirmed a separate, day-long disruption was caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, commonly known as a DDoS attack, which flooded the platform’s servers with junk traffic specifically intended to overwhelm its infrastructure and knock the service offline. Bluesky confirmed the attack in a post acknowledging the incident had unfolded over the preceding 24 hours. “We have upgraded our defenses in response, and we continue to monitor the situation,” the company said, without disclosing further technical detail regarding the source or scale of the attack. A Bluesky spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions from TechCrunch regarding the incident at the time.

An earlier disruption on Aug. 5 similarly affected Bluesky’s backend infrastructure. According to Windows Report, the company confirmed at the time that multiple instances of its Personal Data Server fleet, the distributed backend components that store and serve user data across Bluesky’s decentralized network, had gone down simultaneously, suggesting the issue stemmed from core platform infrastructure rather than isolated individual account problems. User reports on Downdetector spiked sharply during that incident as well, jumping from a normal baseline of roughly one report to 589 reports within about half an hour.

Bluesky’s decentralized architecture, built on what the company calls the AT Protocol, has occasionally raised questions among users about why a distributed system remains vulnerable to widespread outages in the first place. According to TechCrunch’s earlier reporting on a separate 2025 outage, the answer lies in how most users actually interact with the network in practice. While the underlying protocol is designed so that different organizations and communities can theoretically run their own independent infrastructure, including personal data servers and relays, the vast majority of Bluesky’s current user base still relies on the company’s own official app and centrally operated infrastructure, meaning problems affecting Bluesky’s own servers can still cause widespread disruption for most users, even though the platform’s underlying protocol is technically decentralized. Users who have set up and rely on independently operated infrastructure outside Bluesky’s own servers have generally remained unaffected during these company-side outages, according to TechCrunch.

The recurring nature of Bluesky’s outages this month has generated visible frustration among users, many of whom have questioned why similar disruptions have continued occurring in relatively close succession. According to Rolling Out’s coverage of the Aug. 16 outage specifically, most affected users at that time reported problems primarily with the platform’s mobile app rather than its browser-based version, with some users describing being repeatedly logged out of their accounts or experiencing the app working briefly before crashing again.

Given Wednesday’s more moderate spike in reports compared with the platform’s more severe mid-August incidents, the current disruption may reflect a more limited or regionally concentrated issue rather than a full-scale, company-wide outage comparable to the Aug. 16 and Aug. 18 incidents. Users experiencing difficulty accessing Bluesky Wednesday were generally advised by monitoring services to check the platform’s official status page directly, restart the app, or verify their own internet connection before assuming a broader, confirmed outage is underway.

As of this report, Bluesky had not issued a public statement specifically addressing Wednesday’s reported issues, and the underlying cause, if any beyond routine, isolated connectivity problems, remained unconfirmed. Given the platform’s documented pattern of recurring outages throughout August, including at least one confirmed DDoS attack and a separate backend infrastructure failure affecting its Personal Data Server fleet, users and industry observers are likely to continue closely monitoring whether Wednesday’s reports represent another isolated incident or the beginning of a further, more significant disruption to the platform’s service.

Available for over a year

“More Chinese companies are put out of business by other Chinese companies. Chinese companies are not put out of business because of Western companies, so this whole competition is not, from a Chinese guy’s mind, like a US-China competition. It’s more ‘how do I survive this gym?’ because it’s damn hard to keep staying alive at home. That in turn makes you very competitive in the rest of the world.”

Maura Fogarty speaks to Joe Ngai, Chairman of the China region for global consulting firm McKinsey.

He advises senior management at Chinese and multinational corporations in the region which gives him a unique insight into the world’s second-largest economy.

Having written numerous books and reports on China’s economic landscape, Ngai’s expertise has been recognised by accolades from the likes of Forbes China and Bloomberg.

In this interview, we hear his thoughts about how the Chinese market has changed in the 25 years since the country joined the World Trade Organisation, and on how AI is developing and managing tensions with US competitors.

Thank you to the Asia Business team for their help in making this programme.

The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, director Chloé Zhao, and Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, head of the World Trade Organisation. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: Maura Fogarty
Producers: Ben Cooper and Jaltson Akkanath Chummar
Editor: Damon Rose

Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.

(Image: Joe Ngai. Credit: Getty)

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