China’s refusal to accept Boeing planes has become one of the most visible flashpoints of the U.S.-China trade war. Beijing has even sent planes assembled in China back to the U.S. as it retaliates against steep tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. 

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg admitted that China has refused to accept two planes that were ready for delivery, thanks to the tariffs. He added that the planemaker was planning to meet 50 Chinese orders this year, but is now “actively assessing” other options.

That shouldn't be too difficult, says Steven Townend, CEO of BOC Aviation, one of the world’s top jet leasing companies. Airlines turn to companies like BOC Aviation when they want to expand their fleet without necessarily making the expensive decision to buy a new plane. 

“Boeing continues to see strong demand for their aircraft,” Townend says. “It’s relatively easy for them to find alternate customers for those planes right now.”

The aviation industry is still facing a shortage of planes due to manufacturing struggles at both Boeing and Airbus, caused by factors including the COVID pandemic, safety scandals, and supply hiccups at major suppliers.

Airplanes are made up of 10,000 different parts, and “a delay with any one of those can delay the whole plane,” Townend says and added that an airline will probably will not get a plane before 2030 if it was to order one from Airbus or Boeing today.

That makes a suddenly available Boeing jet a hot commodity. Airlines in Malaysia and India are reportedly eyeing jets that are now suddenly on the market, thanks to China’s refusal to take them. 

At the end of March, BOC Aviation announced that it was ordering 50 new Boeing 737-8 aircraft. The company currently has a total order book of 346 aircraft, that includes both Airbus and Boeing planes, which Townend points out is the second-largest among plane lessors. 

BOC Aviation has a portfolio of 829 aircraft and engines owned, managed, and on order. The company counts carriers like American Airlines, Turkish Airlines, and Qatar Airways as amongst its clients.

Tariffs are still a problem

Still, Townend warns that continued U.S. tariff uncertainty could hurt an industry that started the year with a positive outlook.

In December, the International Air Transport Association projected that 5.2 billion people would travel by air in 2025. That would be the first time more than 5 billion people would take to the skies. The group also projected that airlines would earn $36.6 billion in profit this year.

Things don’t look quite so rosy now. In recent weeks, major U.S. airlines have either pulled or softened their guidance, citing uncertainty. 

On Thursday, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan warned that the U.S. airline industry is already in a recession. Fellow aviation CEO Robert Isom, of American Airlines, recently warned analysts that “uncertainty is what we’re living with now.”

At the moment, Townened says a tariff-induced hit to travel is still largely constrained to the U.S., with no evidence of a similar drag on European or Asian airlines. 

Yet continued uncertainty will inevitably be a global drag on the industry. “Everybody is watching the situation on tariffs,” he says. "If this uncertainty runs for a material length of time, then inevitably it will affect global trade, and one of the things that drives airline traffic is global trade.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy of BOC Aviation

South Korea—the poster child for East Asia’s drop in marriages and childbirth—seems like a strange target market for Match Group, operator of dating platforms like Tinder Hinge. 

“Korea has an acute challenge” when it comes to long-term relationships, with a “pretty shocking” 40% decline in marriages over a 10-year-period, notes Malgosia Green, Asia CEO for Match. 

Match Group recently launched a made-for-Korea version of its Pairs app, which targets those seeking more serious relationships or marriage, in contrast to more casual apps like Tinder and Hinge. (Match also offers Tinder in South Korea.)

Green thinks that Pairs could be a good fit for South Korea, given the app’s success in neighboring Japan, another country with a declining population. 

Extrapolating from government data, she suggests that one in 10 marriages in Japan happens due to Pairs. “Twenty-five percent of marriages in Japan happen through dating apps. We can deduce our share of that because Pairs is the leader in Japan,” she explains. 

Match has tailored Pairs to East Asian markets. The app asks users tough questions like “How often do you want to meet your mother-in-law” or “Do you want kids”: awkward in any date setting, but perhaps particularly in East Asia, where people tend to be more circumspect. 

Pairs doesn’t publicly surface those answers, but the app does try to match people who align on these “real mind match” questions. 

“This is our go-to-market feature for the Korean market,” Green says.

Asia's demographic change

Despite a mild uptick in births and marriages last year, South Korea's demographic situation remains the most extreme among East Asian societies followed by Japan, and others like Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Mainland China.

South Korea reported 222,400 marriages in 2024, down from 322,807 in 2013. Fertility rates fell over the same period, falling to 0.75 children born per woman in 2024, down from 1.19 children in 2013.

Where's Match going next in Asia?

Match reported $3.5 billion in revenue for 2024, a 3% increase. Yet Asia revenue declined by 6% over the same period to reach $284 million. Global paying users also declined 5% year on year to reach 14.9 million users.

The company recently brought in Zillow cofounder Spencer Rascoff to be its CEO in February as it tries to attract more users. 

Still, Green thinks the Asia-Pacific region presents new opportunities for Match: 2024's revenue dip in the region aside, paying users in Asia increased 9% year on year to reach 1 million users.

Japan and South Korea not only try to give monetary incentives to encourage people to have children, but actively try to get people to meet through events like government-organized speed-dating. Green says that Match is already partnering with prefecture governments in Japan.

While Match is now focused on South Korea, Green is looking to India as the company's next target in Asia.

Despite a long history of arranged marriages, Green says that today’s Indian parents are hoping to give their children more agency. Marriages for love are more accepted today compared to five years ago, Green says, citing survey data. 

“We see an opportunity there for a high-intent marriage-oriented app,” Green says. “There’s no one playing that space at scale.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy of Match Group Asia

The revived U.S.-China trade war is already causing headaches for companies like Boeing, who now face the prospect of being shut out of the world’s second-largest economy. 

But U.S. casino operator Las Vegas Sands is betting that worsening relations between Washington and Beijing won’t threaten its operations in the Chinese gambling hub of Macau.

“I think we have an incredible relationship with Beijing, and we’ve worked on it for many, many years,” said CEO Rob Goldstein on a call with analysts after the company reported its first quarter earnings. 

“We’re a big believer in the relationship between China and the U.S. We’re very disheartened [by] what’s happening right now. Hopefully, we can get back on track, but it doesn’t keep me up at night,” he added, responding to a question about whether geopolitical uncertainty was on his mind.

In recent weeks, analysts have speculated whether an escalating U.S.-China trade war could put resorts in Macau at risk. In addition to Las Vegas Sands, which operates resorts like the Venetian and the Londoner through its Sands China subsidiary, fellow U.S. casino operators MGM Holdings and Wynn Resorts also have resorts in the Chinese city. 

Las Vegas Sands, No. 387 on the Fortune 500, is one of a handful of companies on the famous ranking that makes almost all of its revenue outside the U.S. The casino has five resorts in Macau and one in Singapore. 

The company reported net revenue of $2.86 billion for the quarter ending March 31, down 3.4% from the same period a year earlier. Net income also fell 30% to reach $408 million. 

The dip was partly driven by softness in Las Vegas Sands’s Macau operations, where visitor numbers have yet to match pre-COVID 2019 levels. The company has pointed to redevelopment at its Londoner resort for softer Macau revenues. 

Chief operating officer Patrick Dumont noted on the recent earnings call that all the Londoner’s 2405 rooms and suites are now operational, ahead of China’s weeklong Golden Week holiday that starts May 1.

The company’s Marina Bay Sands resort in Singapore continued to post strong performance. Revenue for Singapore rose to $1.16 billion, growing from $1.15 billion the same period a year ago.

Las Vegas Sands in fact reported greater earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization from its Singapore business, compared to its Macau business. 

Goldstein was optimistic that the Singapore business would maintain its performance, particularly as the country’s government hopes to draw more visitors. 

“It’s very special who goes to Singapore,” Goldstein said. “I think it’s driven because of the overall goal of the government of Singapore which is to create opportunity for high-value tourism.”

Shares of both Las Vegas Sands and its subsidiary, Sands China, are both down over 30% for the year so far.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Eduardo Leal—Bloomberg via Getty Images

Carl Raymond Cruz, the incoming CEO of Globe Telecom, has experience with the "pecularities" of different markets. The Philippines’ native has worked in several different markets, including Sri Lanka, India and Nigeria. Cruz just took over the Filipino telco as its new chief executive, replacing Ernest Cu, who’s run the Southeast Asia 500 company for over a decade.

Nigeria, where Cruz was based before joining Globe, is an economy where “volatility was on steroids.” Cruz was the CEO of Indian telco Airtel’s Nigeria operations, from May 2023 to December 2024.

“During my time the local currency moved from 519.6 Naira to the dollar to 750 Naira to the dollar in a span of three weeks, and a further eight weeks onwards, that became over 1100 Naira to the dollar,” Cruz remembers. “Inflation shot up to close to 41-42% in parts of the country.”

That experience taught Cruz to “never underestimate” any market. “I could have said ‘oh, this is 10-15 years behind the Philippines’ and that, even with my eyes closed, I know what to do,” he says. But he didn’t take that approach, and found that “true enough, there are peculiarities in every market.”

Who is Carl Raymond Cruz?

Cruz joined Globe as deputy CEO in January, before taking over as CEO on Tuesday. He’s relatively new to the telecoms industry. Much of his career was spent in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, working with Unilever across several different markets.

But Cruz says he was always attracted to the telecoms industry. Both FMCG and telecoms focus on consumers, but you “feel the impact more in telecommunications,” Cruz says, given that it serves as the backbone of the digital economy.

When Airtel Nigeria approached him, Cruz didn’t hesitate to jump ship—in part due to his “bias” for Indian companies, stemming from his India experience. 

“I do like the rigor of how great Indian companies work. I like the operational intensity,” Cruz says.

Plans for Globe

Cruz wants to tap the Philippines’ fast growing digital economy to grow Globe’s user base. While Globe is leads the telco sector by market cap and in mobile users, Cruz wants to make Globe a key player in both broadband and fibre, as well as in enterprise services.

“We want to be the most admired, the most profitable and the largest. Because while we are number one in mobile, our place and our footing in the other two segments can be improved,” Cruz says

Part of Globe’s network includes GCash, the finance super-app run by Globe affiliate Mynt. Cruz, previously, had noted that a GCash IPO could come as early as the final quarter of the year. 

“We haven’t filed any proposal or application to list at this point in time. The focus is making sure that we are ready when the right time comes,” Cruz says. 

Cruz notes that Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs are part of the reason why he wants that flexibility for a GCash IPO. But while Trump’s pivots on trade policy have caused global uncertainty, Cruz is confident the Philippines can withstand any major shocks. 

“Inflation is going down below 3%. GDP is hovering between 5.5 to 6%. We have a very stable [business process outsourcing] sector and 72% of the GDP is from domestic consumption,” Cruz says. “From a macro perspective, the Philippines will be resilient.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy of Globe Telecom