Bloomberg Daybreak Asia: Reciprocal Tariffs to Take Effect, Trump Threatens Chip Levies
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Wary of sticker shock, retailers clash with brands on price hikes
By Helen Reid LONDON (Reuters) -Caught between rising costs from tariffs and belt-tightening consumers, big retailers are clashing with the producers of consumer brands such as Nivea-maker Beiersdorf and brewer Heineken, as they look to avoid sticker shock that could hurt sales. The disputes - which have dented some brands' sales - underscore the challenge for consumer goods makers and sellers, with inflation and tariffs pushing up input costs and price spikes in commodities such as coffee. While pricing talks have never been easy, tariffs are escalating already high food inflation since the pandemic, making grocery bills more contentious and political as consumers grapple with a cost-of-living crisis. "We all should be very well aware of consumer budgets," Frans Muller, CEO of supermarket company Ahold Delhaize, which owns U.S. chains Food Lion, Hannaford, and Stop & Shop, told Reuters on Wednesday. He said conversations with consumer goods companies over pricing were "tight," adding that the industry's focus was on increasing sales volumes rather than increasing revenue by hiking prices. "That is the wrong way of supporting customers and the wrong way of growing the business itself." Ahold has in-house teams that track commodity, energy, and labour costs, and own-brand products it can compare with to establish whether price increases demanded by consumer brands are justified or not, Muller said. On the other side of the equation are the brands, facing higher costs that are squeezing margins. Beiersdorf CEO Vincent Warnery said on Wednesday that retailers in key markets, including Germany and France, had pushed back strongly in price talks last quarter, not only refusing price increases but asking for price reductions, and pulling products from shelves. Beiersdorf eventually agreed to a 2.6% rise, Warnery said, but delistings of some products by retailers knocked two percentage points off its sales growth in Europe in the second quarter. "There will be a lot of price changes pushed forward by consumer brands, some will be accepted by retailers and some will not," said Bobby Gibbs, a Dallas-based partner at Oliver Wyman who advises retailers and consumer goods firms. Manufacturers will find it easier to push higher prices through on products where there is brand loyalty and fewer strong private label alternatives, Gibbs said. Reuters' global tariff tracker shows at least 102 out of nearly 300 companies monitored by the tracker have announced price hikes in response to the trade war, with about 41 of them in the consumer sector. As well as tariffs, other factors like the cost of capital and labour, and commodity prices in the case of coffee and chocolate, are pushing prices up on certain products, Gibbs said. Trump has said the tariffs counter persistent U.S. trade imbalances and declining U.S. manufacturing power, and that the moves will bring jobs and investment to the nation. MORE PRICE HIKES AHEAD More price hikes are planned, particularly in the U.S. Tide detergent maker Procter & Gamble last week said it was raising prices on about a quarter of its products in the U.S. by a mid-single-digit percentage as part of efforts to mitigate the cost of higher tariffs on imported goods. That will affect pricing at Walmart, Target, and other stores. As talks heat up, more retailers could pull branded products temporarily as a negotiating tactic, as Ahold's Albert Heijn chain did this year in a dispute over price hikes by coffee roaster JDE Peet's. Dutch brewer Heineken last week said its beer sales were dented by a price dispute with European retailers. "Many retailers are getting more sophisticated in how they can measure product switching ... so they're willing to be bolder on delistings because they're able to protect sales and margin more than they would have in the past," said Gibbs. In Europe, retailers are joining forces to increase their clout in pricing talks. Carrefour said last month it had created a new European buying alliance called Concordis, along with rival group Coopérative U, and is in advanced discussions with other European retailers to expand the alliance. Supermarkets are developing more own-brand alternatives to big-name brands. Ahold has introduced 300 new own-brand products this year in its U.S. chains, and sales growth in those has outpaced the rest of the store, it said. Big brands have taken note, with P&G's Chief Financial Officer Andre Schulten saying last week that retailers have been implementing "more aggressive pricing" on own-brand products. "We see some level of pressure to drive trade down because of price promotional behaviour," he said, referring to consumers swapping to lower-priced products, adding the market would remain "volatile and challenging". Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
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iValue Announces Strategic Partnership with Cnergee to Deliver High-Performance, Quantum Secure, and Scalable SD-WAN SASE Solutions for Indian Enterprises
This partnership marks a pivotal step for both organizations, focusing on mutual growth and increased market footprint. BENGALURU, India, Aug. 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- iValue Group, India's fastest growing strategic technology advisor, today announced a strategic partnership with Cnergee, a leading Indian innovator in secure SD-WAN SASE technologies. The partnership brings together iValue's go-to-market strength and Cnergee's patented networking capabilities to address the growing demand for secure, agile, and sovereign networking infrastructure in India. iValue will now offer access to Cnergee's PMTA-based SD-WAN platform, a field-proven solution trusted by India's largest PSU banks and deployed across 20,000+ locations in over 500 cities. The platform delivers highly resilient, packet-level WAN aggregation, enabling enterprises to maintain uninterrupted access to critical applications and services. As Indian enterprises scale digital infrastructure, the need for dependable, secure, and compliant networking has become a top priority. Cnergee's SD-WAN is engineered to address this demand with its patented Packet-wise Multi-session Tunnel Aggregation (PMTA) technology. The platform intelligently aggregates MPLS, broadband, and 4G/5G WAN links at the packet level, ensuring true bandwidth aggregation, low latency, and seamless failover. Beyond standard VPNs, Cnergee embeds quantum security at its core. The solution provides 256-bit AES encryption with dynamic key rotation capability to rotate keys from per packet to 10 minutes, making data interception virtually impossible. Combined with an integrated Next-generation firewall, IDS/IPS capabilities, DLP and LAN-WAN virtualization, Cnergee provides a multi-layered defence that is essential in today's threat landscape. For IT teams managing complex environments, Cnergee simplifies deployment through true Zero-Touch Provisioning enabled by eSIM. With true Zero-Touch Provisioning Cnergee's SD-WAN allows for rapid and efficient deployment across diverse locations, eliminating the need for on-site technical expertise. A centralized orchestrator offers a single pane of glass to monitor and manage the entire network infrastructure (across LAN, WAN, and perimeter) helping reduce operational complexity while enhancing visibility and control. Choosing Cnergee means opting for a solution built from the ground up in India, free from open-source dependencies in its core. This mitigates supply chain risks especially for sensitive environments like BFSI or Healthcare, ensures data sovereignty, compliance with data privacy norms, and aligns with national security priorities. Commenting on the partnership, R Venkatesh – Co-Founder and CRO at iValue Group said, "Enterprise networks must deliver performance and control without compromising on security. Our partnership with Cnergee brings a field-proven SD-WAN platform that delivers just that: reliability, agility, and data sovereignty. As a solution engineered and scaled in India, Cnergee is a strategic fit for organizations navigating both digital transformation and compliance challenges. This aligns with our vision of delivering sovereign, resilient, and future-ready solutions to public and private enterprises. Cnergee's unique capabilities, especially around dynamic encryption, zero-touch provisioning, and centralized network orchestration, will bring immediate value to CIOs and CISOs looking for performance and control. We're excited to take this to our ecosystem of partners and customers across industries." "iValue enables strategic reach and consultative selling enablement for Cnergee to simplify and optimise the IT infrastructure for enterprises, SMBs and Governments. Cnergee's solution enables reduction of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and iValue managed services approach enables significant saving for customers," said Sameer Kanse – Chief Business Officer at Cnergee. With this partnership, iValue continues to advance its mission of enabling enterprise transformation through curated technology portfolios that are relevant, compliant, and future-ready. About iValue Group iValue Group, the fastest-growing Strategic Technology Advisor, secures and manages enterprises' digital assets in hybrid-cloud environments. With 500+ experts, we offer custom solutions and services, partnering with top OEMs across India, SAARC and SEA. iValue cloud-based CoE showcases 25+ integrated solutions stack across OEMs to facilitate risk-free technology adoption in double quick time for our Partners' business growth. iValue has a direct presence across India, SAARC and Southeast Asia, with local teams covering business and technical needs of partners to address their customer's needs across the regions. Reach out to iValue Group: About Cnergee Cnergee is a Make in India, secure-by-design integrated Network Security OEM and a leading provider of innovative and reliable internet services. Cnergee offers a comprehensive suite of solutions, including SD-WAN, Next-Gen firewalls, Data Diode, Managed WiFi, and DLP (Data Loss Prevention). Our mission is to secure organizations against modern cyber threats providing them with tools for Network and endpoint security. Cnergee's solutions are built from the ground up, utilizing its patented PMTA (Packet-wise Multisession Tunnel Aggregation) technology with C and Embedded Linux framework to deliver industry-leading security and predictable performance. Backed by a commitment to excellence, Cnergee is the trusted partner for all your network security needs across BFSI, Energy, Manufacturing, Retail and smart city projects. Reach out to Cnergee: View original content: Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
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China says trade jumped in July, beating forecasts
China's exports beat expectations and rose 7.2 percent year-on-year in July, official data showed Thursday, as overseas shipments buoyed its struggling economy even as it navigated a shaky trade war truce with the United States. The two economic superpowers agreed in Stockholm last month to hold further talks on extending the tariff truce. That deal has temporarily set fresh US duties on Chinese goods at 30 percent, while Beijing's levies on US goods stand at 10 percent. The accord -- initially agreed in Geneva in May -- brought down triple-digit tariffs each side had imposed on the other after Donald Trump launched his "Liberation Day" levies on April 2. The 90-day truce is set to end on August 12, when the original duties could snap back. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said following the Stockholm talks that Trump would have the "final say" on any extension of a tariffs truce between Washington and Beijing. Higher tariffs on dozens of trading partners -- including a blistering 35 percent on Canada -- came into force Thursday as Trump seeks to reshape global trade to benefit the US economy. He has also threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on semiconductor imports. Thursday's data showing an increase in China's overseas shipments last month outpaced a Bloomberg forecast of 5.6 percent. But the figures also showed that China's exports to the United States, its largest trading partner, continued to fall, sinking 6.1 percent from the previous month. And imports -- a key gauge of struggling domestic demand -- jumped 4.1 percent year-on-year in July, compared with a Bloomberg forecast of a one-percent fall. Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said the data showed "exports supported the economy strongly so far this year". "Export growth may slow in coming months, as the front loading of exports due to US tariffs fades away," he said. "The big question is how much China's exports will slow and how it would spill over to the rest of the economy," he said. Beijing has said an official goal of around five percent growth this year. But it has struggled to maintain a strong economic recovery from the pandemic, as it fights a debt crisis in its massive property sector, chronically low consumption and elevated youth unemployment. Factory output shrank more than expected in July, data showed last week. pfc-oho/tym Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
