Imported competition is causing local pressure

Walk through any Singapore mall today, and something about the atmosphere has quietly changed. The bubble tea shop is from Chengdu. The hotpot place is backed by a 700-outlet chain you’ve never heard of. The coffee queue is for Luckin, not Starbucks.

Chinese F&B brands are suddenly everywhere, and they are expanding rapidly. Molly Tea, for instance, arrived less than two months ago and has already opened its second store.

This isn’t a coincidence, but part of a larger phenomenon—and understanding why requires looking at what’s happening inside China first.

The price wars back in mainland China

In 2024, three million food businesses closed in China.

The cause wasn’t a single recession or policy shock, but something more structural: a market so competitive that it began consuming itself.

Economists call it involution (neijuan), a cycle of excessive internal competition where companies fight harder for the same or shrinking demand. Instead of expanding the market, everyone competes on price, driving margins down until survival, not growth, becomes the goal.

In F&B, this dynamic shows up most clearly in price undercutting. When Luckin already pushed coffee to RMB¥9.9 (S$2) lattes, newer entrants like Lucky Cup went even lower, selling RMB¥6.6 (S$0.90) coffees. The logic wasn’t to build premium positioning, but to win attention and volume in an overcrowded market where differentiation had collapsed into price.

Lucky Cup, backed by tea and ice cream giant Mixue, scaled rapidly on this model, becoming China’s fourth-largest coffee chain with over 10,000 stores across 300+ cities, despite not even entering first-tier markets like Beijing or Shanghai.

The same dynamic shows up in electric vehicles. In China’s increasingly crowded EV market, BYD has been actively cutting prices to defend its share against intensifying competition. The result is a sector-wide squeeze on profitability: despite record sales volumes, BYD has faced sustained downward pressure on margins, culminating in its first annual profit decline in four years by March 2026.

Even BYD’s chairman Wang Chuanfu has acknowledged that the industry has reached a “boiling point,” where competition is no longer translating into proportional gains. In this environment, sales growth alone no longer guarantees sustainable profits—companies are effectively trading margin for volume just to maintain position in an oversupplied market.

China’s F&B market saw over 1 million businesses shut in just the first half of 2024, and that’s a 70% increase from 2023. With the home market saturated, the obvious move was outward beyond one of the most (if not the most) competitive domestic markets.

And increasingly, Singapore emerged as a consistent destination.

Why Singapore?

Singapore is not just a market for Chinese brands but a legitimacy stamp for these businesses. If they can make their businesses work in Singapore, they can succeed anywhere in Asia.

The city-state has the highest per-capita GDP in the world in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) and a food culture that is both demanding and well-documented, as seen from being the first Southeast Asian city to receive a Michelin Guide. Reviews travel, queues get photographed, and openings make regional news.

A brand that earns its place here is perceived as having cleared a meaningful bar.

Traditionally a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures, Singapore has also become an attractive gateway for expansion, with its 6.1 million predominantly Chinese population.

As executives at several Chinese firms noted in interviews, the city-state is seen as “wealthy and fashionable”—a place where simply having a presence carries branding value, even beyond immediate sales potential.

The executives are not shy about revealing the larger ambitions Singapore has for their brands. ChaPanda’s Singapore manager told Inside Retail Asia:  “If we can build up our brand in Singapore, the brand awareness can go to Malaysia and Vietnam, even Indonesia.”

This sentiment is echoed by Luckin’s CEO Guo Jinyi, who shared that Singapore serves as a “critical testing ground” for building the brand, refining operational systems, and understanding overseas business models. The city-state serves as Luckin’s launchpad into other Southeast Asian countries.

There are also precedents of Chinese brands using Singapore as a stepping stone toward more global expansion. Tea brand Tai Er, for instance, leveraged its Singapore operations as part of its regional push before eventually entering the US market by 2023.

The pattern is consistent across many Chinese brands that went global. Singapore is not the destination. It’s the launchpad, a stamp of legitimacy that makes the next ten markets easier to enter.

Losses that don’t matter

This reframes everything about how these brands operate here, including the rents they’re willing to pay.

Consider the scale some of these chains are operating at. Pang Pang, the claypot crab restaurant at Bugis, has over 600 outlets in China and sells 50 million pots a year. Xiao Yu Hao at Raffles Place—known for its suan cai yu—runs 800 outlets back home. Xita Lao Tai Tai at Bugis+, a charcoal clay stove BBQ chain, operates 600 outlets and is named China’s number one BBQ chain. Yeah Gelato in Tampines has 168 outlets in China.

These brands draw on lean business models honed in China’s intensely competitive market and apply them to operations in Singapore to withstand high costs. Many rely on vertically integrated supply chains, where companies control multiple stages of production in-house—a sharp contrast to many Western rivals, which tend to depend on outsourced suppliers.

Since 2021, Luckin has been building more of its production capabilities. Its low-value consumables, such as packaging materials and straws, cost the company just RMB¥210 million (S$39 million) across its entire 30,000-store network. This translates to roughly S$1,307.64 per store per year, or about S$3.58 per store per day.

When a brand of this scale opens in Singapore, the individual outlet’s profit-and-loss is almost beside the point. If you view the 81 stores here in proportion to the over 30,000 stores that Luckin Coffee has in China, the Singapore stores are a marketing expense—a flagship that generates press coverage, attracts franchise interest from regional partners, and signals to investors that the brand is global.

This is why they can outbid local tenants on rent without flinching.

Andy Hoon, chairman of Bosses Network, a local business networking group representing SME and retail operators, described the dynamic: if a Singaporean tenant offers S$36 to S$38 per square foot when the market expectation is S$30 to S$40, a Chinese brand might offer S$45—above what even the landlord anticipated.

Industry observers echo this shift. Ethan Hsu, head of retail at Knight Frank, noted that large-scale Chinese investment has contributed to rising rents in high-traffic locations, while TungLok Group CEO Andrew Tjioe added that some brands are less driven by immediate profitability than by securing overseas presence and building global brand visibility.

Luckin’s financials are a great example of this business strategy. In financial year 2024, Luckin’s Singapore operations reported losses of RMB¥47 million (S$8.8 million). But in the same year, Luckin generated over RMB¥34.5 billion (S$6.4 billion) in total revenue, with an operating profit of approximately RMB¥3.5 to 3.9 billion driven overwhelmingly by its China business.

Yet, it has been expanding by around 30 stores every year here since 2023. 

Against that scale, Singapore’s losses are effectively marginal and absorbed without much consequence by China’s much bigger operations. Singapore is not treated like a profit centre but a line item in a longer-term international expansion strategy.

So what happens when the strategy stops working?

The model has a vulnerability that doesn’t show up until later: it assumes the China business stays strong enough to keep subsidising overseas losses.

Haidilao is a key example. The hotpot chain opened its first Singapore outlet at Clarke Quay in 2012, making it its first international outlet outside mainland China. Following its success, Haidilao expanded to more than 20 outlets across Singapore at its peak.

Then the rationalisation began. The Clarke Quay flagship closed in August 2025, following earlier shutdowns at Downtown East and Bedok Mall.

A Haidilao spokesperson cited labour costs, outlet locations, and rental pressures as reasons for closing underperforming stores, as the chain moved to optimise operational efficiency. The closures highlight a familiar constraint: when overseas expansion is no longer easily justified to public markets, consolidation tends to follow.

Unlike Haidilao, most of the newer brands entering Singapore aren’t publicly listed—meaning they don’t yet have shareholders demanding quarterly results. Many are venture capital or private equity-backed, operating on deep pockets with capital that is explicitly patient. But patient capital still has expectations.

If a brand cannot demonstrate a credible path to profitability in Singapore within two to three years, investor expectations begin to shift. Sustaining prime locations while keeping prices low ultimately depends on continued financial backing—either from a strong parent company or successive funding rounds—that can support the broader supply chain and scale these brands rely

The broader Singapore F&B picture adds pressure. Some 3,047 businesses shut in 2024—the highest figure in nearly two decades. The casualties so far are mostly local: Ka-Soh, an 85-year-old heritage restaurant, and the Privé Group, after 18 years of operation. 

Knight Frank has described the environment as “a very Darwinian retail landscape,” noting that rising competition from Chinese entrants has intensified pressure on incumbents. Unlike many local players, these new entrants have largely been insulated from closures, underpinned by scale advantages that domestic operators struggle to match.

But insulation is not immunity.

The question is not whether Chinese brands will keep entering Singapore. As of Aug 2025, some 85 Chinese F&B brands were operating around 405 outlets in Singapore, more than double the 32 brands and 184 outlets recorded just a year earlier. 

There’s no doubt that they will keep coming. The more pressing question is what happens when these brands have been in Singapore long enough to be judged on standalone performance, and whether the China-based ecosystems quietly subsidising their expansion can continue absorbing pressure of their own.

• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

The world of open source — and in particular open source licenses — is something we cover regularly here at Hackaday with respect to hardware and software, but it’s not so often we find open source data stories. Today’s case of the open British address data then is a bit of an outlier, but it may have implications for open source data further than British counties.

UK government data is released under the Open Government Licence, which is why we Brits can peer into all sorts of datasets our taxes paid for. This includes data from local government, so English counties release data sets of local addresses as part of their auditing of council taxes under the licence.

[Owen Boswarva] has been collating these databases in order to produce a national open source address database, but has found himself at the receiving end of a legal threat from the Ordnance Survey, the UK mapping agency. They claim the data is theirs, not open.

British address data is in a sense open to all, in that there’s nothing to stop anyone walking down Acacia Avenue and noting the position of Number 1, Number 2, Number 3, and so on. This is what happened with OpenStreetMap worldwide, as people with GPS devices contributed their data and mapped the UK and everywhere else. The Ordnance Survey used to have a nice little earner charging top dollar for UK geospatial data which has been slashed by the arrival of OpenStreetMap, and we’re guessing that the prospect of losing another income stream to an open source equivalent has them worried.

The question of whether the councils should have released the data is one which will no doubt be settled at some point by the courts, and [Owen] goes into some detail on the subject in his analysis. There’s a good case to be made that the mapping agency are pushing it a little, but whatever the outcome it could set a dangerous precedent for open source data. We’ll keep you posted if there’s more on this story.

British street: Bill Harrison, CC BY-SA 2.0

Barbra Streisand: Unknown author, Public domain

Sony just dropped its newest top-tier phone, the Xperia 1 VIII, and it arrives at a moment when most people have forgotten the company even competes in this space. Announced today, the device brings a complete visual refresh after years of the same tall, narrow shape. At first glance the changes feel subtle, yet they add up to something that finally stands apart from the sea of glass slabs everyone else sells.

Start with the body, which Sony refers to as the ORE appearance, which is unsurprising given that it is inspired by the rough textures of raw gemstones and natural stone right from the ground. The rear of the phone has a frosted glass finish with a fine grain that makes it a pleasure to handle, as opposed to the typical slick sheen found on other phones. There are four new colors to pick from: graphite black, iolite silver, garnet red, and a gorgeous Native Gold that is exclusively available on the higher-capacity models. The rear features a redesigned elevated camera block wrapped in metal and housing the lenses in a flush layout along the left edge. We no longer see the former vertical strip. The phone appears to have undergone a growth spurt, as it now boldly displays its camera system for all to see.

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Flip it around, and the 6.5-inch screen is a stunning piece of OLED with a 120 hertz refresh rate and the same 1080 by 2340 quality we’ve come to expect. The thick borders above and below the display are a good touch, keeping the front of the phone looking clean and clutter-free, with no notch or hole-punch cutouts visible. Even with the larger screen, the phone fits neatly into a pocket and provides plenty viewing space. Qualcomm’s latest and best Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip powers everything, and it comes with either 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage or a more significant 16GB with a whole terabyte to play with. Both variants will accept a microSD card if you run out of space, which is a function that most other phones have long abandoned.

The real magic happens with the cameras, which includes three 48-megapixel sensors on the back: a regular lens, an ultrawide that can capture a vast 104-degree view, and a telephoto that can now extend to a useful 70 millimeters. The telephoto sensor is four times larger than the one in last year’s model, which makes a huge impact in low light circumstances, as detail is no longer compromised even when the sun drops below the horizon. Sony has also incorporated RAW multi-frame processing to all rear lenses, which discreetly but significantly increases dynamic range, reduces noise, and protects highlights and shadows without requiring users to actively switch settings.

Here’s the real kicker: an AI assistant named Xperia Intelligence monitors what you’re shooting and makes suggestions in real time. It’s also not some unpleasant automated feature, since you can aim the phone at a subject and it will offer a different lens, a touch of bokeh, or a color tone from Sony’s professional photographic pedigree, all with a simple tap. If none of that appeals to you, there is still a real shutter button on the side, just where committed camera enthusiasts want it to be. Selfies, meanwhile, are courtesy of a 12 megapixel front camera, which, let’s be honest, handles everyday photos with ease.

Sony claims that the battery capacity (5,000mAh) is enough for two full days of mixed use, including browsing, streaming, gaming, and the occasional phone call on a single charge. Of course, your mileage may vary, but the business has also implemented some intelligent power management, which should prevent things like high-drain apps from draining the battery when they are not needed. You get quick charging at 30 watts and wireless charging for good measure, as well as a projected battery life of 4 years with repeated use.

Sound, meantime, has received the same level of attention. A true old-fashioned 3.5mm headphone jack returns, which is fantastic news for people who still prefer to listen to music with wired headphones and recall Sony’s Walkman legacy. Stereo speakers now have matched drivers on each side, which should result in tighter bass, crisper highs, and a lot more immersive sound, as this is the type of thing that truly brings music and film to life. The phone ships with Android 16 out of the box and will receive four major updates and six years of security patches.

The pricing is a touch surprising, with the base 256GB model costing about £1,399 in the UK and €1,499 almost everywhere else in Europe. If you want the 1TB model, it will cost £1,849 or €1,999. Pre-orders are currently open, and if you place one, you will receive a free set of Sony’s good WH-1000XM6 headphones. They will begin shipping in the middle of June. Sorry, Xperia 1 VIII fans in the United States, but your region has been missed yet again, which must be disappointing for those who are expecting to get their hands on this phone.

InstaFarm’s patented 4-by-4-inch compostable trays come pre-filled with about a half-inch of soil (“sourced from Amish Country in Pennsylvania,” according to InstaFarm) and organic, non-GMO seeds, with the nutritional info for the final-product microgreens listed on top. They come in over a dozen varieties of nine-packs for $23, including individual cultivars, smoothie- and salad-specific blends, and even plain trays for growing your own greens or garden starts. It is worth noting that the trays are easily saturated paperboard designed for one-time use.

For comparison, Vego’s hydroponic microgreens planter, which I used last year, is just $60 for two units, while Gardyn’s is $100. Neither produces a volume of greens anywhere close to the InstaFarm, but again, $500 can buy a lot of store-bought microgreens.

InstaFarm has an app, but it doesn’t add much to the experience, other than the ability to activate night mode (which then turns off the light for up to 10 hours). More helpful is the button on the top of the unit that comes with a sticker describing how many presses are required for any function you’d need.

Every 90 minutes, a metal nozzle arm pops out and moves along each shelf, sensing each tray and its plants’ height, humidity, and temperature. Once the nozzle is done sensing, it dispenses an appropriate blast of water, much like the spray heads in the produce section of the grocery store. If you have cats, they may be very interested the first time they hear the nozzle whirring and moving slowly over the shelves. (The first quick, unexpected spray was an entertaining event in my house.) Sometimes, this sensing was more accurate in theory than in practice—for some reason, the sensor consistently overshot the watering volume for the red beet greens (but only the beet greens), causing the tray to overflow daily.

After a few weeks, I noticed the nozzle making a slight mechanical noise once it finished its rounds, as it slowly retracted back to its resting position. It wasn’t loud—it reminded me of the sound the bullwheel makes at the top of a ski lift—but because the InstaFarm was sitting on my dining room table, it was noticeable. And I should also note it was on my dining room table because, despite the website’s claims the unit can fit under most kitchen cabinets, it was just slightly too tall for mine. This made it difficult to site, as it does take up an approximate 6-by-18-inch footprint. Given how easy it is to clip the greens off for salads, smoothies, and other meals, its most natural habitat is probably the kitchen, so you may want to measure more than once to make sure it will fit your space.

Greens Aplenty

Photograph: Kat Merck

Just as the directions claimed would happen, I had lush, usable microgreens in about five days. For my first growing round (I’ve now been through four), I was overly excited and placed a tray on every slot. Unless you have a large family that eats microgreens for every meal, I don’t recommend this. I tried gamely to use them all, but after the traumatic experience of putting a tray’s worth of radish microgreens in a strawberry smoothie (so spicy, so radishy), I decided to share some of my first-grown trays with friends.

OPPO has officially confirmed that the Find X9S and Find X9 Ultra will launch in India on May 21. The new flagship smartphones are designed for users who prioritize photography and video creation, featuring upgraded Hasselblad camera setups. Alongside the camera upgrades, both smartphones also include large silicon-carbon batteries and dedicated cooling systems for stable performance.

OPPO Find X9 Ultra and X9S: Specs

OPPO has designed the Find X9S with a slim 7.99mm body while still offering premium camera and video capabilities. The device includes three 50MP cameras tuned with Hasselblad technology for consistent imaging results. It also supports Dolby Vision recording and AI features to enhance photos, videos, and everyday usability.

The Hasselblad Master Camera System is a key highlight of the Find X9 series. The purpose of the system is to ensure that the photos produced have balanced colors, good detail, and a consistent photography experience across all the camera sensors on the phone. Another technology OPPO uses to make their images even better is the LUMO Image Engine, which provides high dynamic range, improved clarity, and lower noise levels.

The OPPO Find X9 Ultra features some powerful video tools that are helpful for movie-makers and content creators. The device can capture videos at 8K/30fps and 4K/120fps speeds using all of its cameras. The company also includes features such as O-Log2 and ACES support for pro editing software, as well as a dedicated LUT.

Furthermore, OPPO is focusing on battery life and thermal management with the Find X9 Ultra. The mobile has a 7050mAh battery and an advanced cooling system designed to meet the rigorous demands of creative tasks.

India Launch Date and Expected Availability

OPPO will officially launch the Find X9S and Find X9 Ultra in India on May 21. The company is expected to reveal pricing and sale details during the event itself. The launch further shows OPPO’s strategy to expand its premium flagship portfolio in the Indian smartphone market.

Elementary school is tough.

There are playground politics, multiplication tables and learning to read.

Imagine dealing with all that in a new language — or even a whole new country.

That’s the added challenge for kids who are learning English at the same time they’re learning everything else as their peers.

It’s an issue that Sarah Walters and her colleagues were determined to tackle in Troy City Schools, a public school district made up of nine campuses roughly an hour north of Cincinnati. The area is home to an automotive manufacturer that brings some employees — and their families — over from Japan.

Roughly 3 percent of 4,000 students have primary languages like Spanish, Ukrainian and Japanese, a relatively small population compared to the most recent national average of 11 percent.

But that small group is making big gains. Looking to close the literacy gaps that have plagued schools since the pandemic, the district took a big swing to increase literacy among its English learners. It trained 116 staff members — including every elementary teacher, intervention specialist, paraprofessional and principal — in the Orton-Gillingham approach.

They say it’s paying off.

Walters, a literacy instructional support specialist, says that helping multilingual students master their grasp on English is vital. Like any other student, the foundation that they lay in reading and math will affect their learning from that point on.

“We want to help the students continue to thrive, and really everything that we’re thinking about with our student services is equitable learning opportunities,” Walters says.

Moving Toward Equity

Federal data shows that English learners’ achievement scores lag far behind their peers on average, and have made little improvement over the past two decades.

Troy City Schools was eager to close widening literacy gaps that surfaced after the onset of the pandemic, Walters says, which was particularly hard on English learners like those at Concord Elementary. A big hurdle was phonics, the letter sounds that make up words.

“We were seeing a lot of student frustration and wanting to give up,” Walters recalls. “Students being very withdrawn, those social-emotional impacts.”

Back in 2020, English-language instruction was inconsistent and fragmented across classrooms.

Yet, even with the desire to boost English learner scores, the program took some time.

Following the pandemic, Troy City Schools mulled over the changes for three years before it had enough funding to deliver on it, according to Danielle Romine, director of Elementary Teaching and Learning for the district. The effort was funded through post-COVID relief grants and budget allocations made by the district’s leaders.

As a literacy specialist, Walters became certified in the Orton-Gillingham method through the Institute for Multi-Sensory Education. It’s an approach that folds movement and touch into learning reading and spelling. She’s now responsible for supporting and training staff to successfully use the techniques.

Walters says teachers and staff were trained to utilize drills that connect literacy concepts through visuals, sound and movement. Students might use flash cards as a visual element or tap their fingers to each letter as they spell out a word. Students also learn the origin and history of words to strengthen their ability to decode them. For example, a “red word” is one that does not follow phonics rules.

“Our multilingual learners love it because no longer are they being told, ‘That’s just the way it is,” Walters says.

After an initial summer training on the Orton-Gillingham approach, teachers spoke so highly of the method that requests for training grew among staff.

Initial Promise

“In a school district, if you want to get something out, just tell a teacher, because it [will] spread like wildfire,” Romine says.

And the data are showing promising results, Walter says. The district-wide third grade reading proficiency had plummeted to 56 percent in 2021-22 but had risen to 81 percent by 2023-24 — slightly higher than its pre-COVID achievement rate. The most recent state data shows Concord Elementary far surpassed its target goal for English proficiency among multilingual students.

Walters has heard from teachers who say that the approach has helped some English learner students make lightning-fast gains in reading. One educator told her that two students from Japan who joined the elementary school in the fall were conversing in English by December. Another student’s phonics diagnostic score shot up by 38 points in the same timeframe.

Now, the district is working to spread the method beyond its own campuses.

“Eventually, our goal is to support the entire community, or the entire county because Sarah having that training [enables her] to support teachers from other districts, as well,” Romine says.

But for English learners, ensuring they’re on grade level in reading goes beyond measuring their success in the classroom.

Walters says that the district is thinking about long-term learning for children who, for example, may be in the U.S. for a few years before returning to Japan.

Now, the district is working to spread the method beyond its own campuses.

“Eventually, our goal is to support the entire community, or the entire county because Sarah having that training [enables her] to support teachers from other districts, as well,” Romine says.

But for English learners, ensuring they’re on grade level in reading goes beyond measuring their success in the classroom.

Walters says that the district is thinking about long-term learning for children who, for example, may be in the U.S. for a few years before returning to Japan.

“We want students to have success across math, science, everything,” Walters says. “So it’s important that we get them up to speed as quickly as possible, because those long-term impacts could really be harmful for them. That early literacy is key.”