prepared

The Spain we know is not prepared for today’s world

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“The worst thing has been the explosions, we thought the houses were going to collapse.” María José Díaz, from Diario Sur, spent last night talking to the neighbors from Grazalema that have been relocated to Ronda. That phrase perfectly sums up the terror that ran through the people of Cadiz. The evacuation of Grazalema. It has rained a lot in the mountains of Cádiz, that is not new. And they are not onlyalmost 600 l/m² on the rainiest dayis that in recent weeks more than 2,000 l/m² have been accumulated. That is what has turned the streets of the town into a continuous river. That is what has caused water to flow from the floors of the houses, from the baseboards, from the wall sockets. That is what has finally caused the ‘explosions’ (the noises or cracks) that at first seemed like storms, but were quickly identified as hydroseisms. Grazalema is in an environment of karst limestone rock. This suggests that beneath the ground there is a whole network of microcavities, conduits and small sinkholes. When the system becomes saturated and the water table rises, water can escape everywhere. So he has done it. What is reported in the press is calling ‘hydrosisms’ They can be understood as the response of the soil to that enormous amount of water. In Grazalema, the creaks are interpreted more as a form of rearrangement of the terrain. It may seem strange, but there is clear evidence of the process (also in Spain). Why has it been evacuated? A priori, the evacuation makes technical sense (the state of the clogged aquifer is being studied), but also psychological (the situation among the population – as evidenced by testimonies – was becoming a nightmare). What lessons can we learn from all this? As González Alemán recalled, we can’t say for sure that all this has something to do with climate change. It will have to be studied in detail, but what is certain is that yes has assumed (is assuming) a stress test of the water infrastructures of Andalusia and, by extension, of Spain. And that should lead us to reflect on the enormous urban reconversion that will have to be undertaken if this follows what the trends indicate. It is not just towns like Grazalema, nor the coasts of the country. It is not only the buildings built in flood zones, nor the retaining walls that appear insufficient. It is the system as a whole. A system that it is not clear that we can change in time. Image | Heparin1985 In Xataka | If the question is how the Andalusian water system is holding up all this water, we have an answer: they are going to evacuate Grazalema completely

Mercadona already sells 51% of all prepared dishes

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Does almost a year Juan Roig astonished everyone and everyone with a prediction that sounded almost like dystopian science fiction. In his opinion, shared the founder of Mercadona, ceramic hobs, ovens, extractor hoods and other culinary appliances have their days numbered in homes. “I said it and I maintain it: in the middle of the 21st century there will be no kitchens,” claimed. It is not that we are going to stop eating at home. We will simply arrive there with our already prepared dishes, stews, pastas, fish… that have previously been prepared in supermarkets. Sector data suggest that Roig was not wrong. Perhaps it is too early to know if the kitchens are mortally wounded, but one thing is clear: the prepared meals business is growing and Mercadona has been able to position itself in it. A percentage: 51.2%. That Mercadona has found the key to become the heavyweight in the sector is nothing new. The data may vary from one study to another, but in general they show that the Valencian company has managed to gain a market share of between 25 and 30%. The curious thing is that there is a niche in which its dominance is even greater: that of the distribution of prepared dishes. According to Algori data advanced by Food Retail In that segment its footprint reaches a surprising (and overwhelming) 51.2%. Getting perspective. The percentage is striking in itself, but it is even more curious when it is put into context and both the overall results of the company and that of its direct rivals are taken into account. Mercadona’s share in the prepared meals segment (54.2%) far exceeds that of the chain as a whole called “FMCG”the total of fast-moving consumer goods. Its footprint in that business niche is ‘only’ 36.9%. As for the rest of the chains, their weight in the cooked food business is much lower. The second best positioned is Grupo Carrefour, with 9.9%, followed by Lidl (8.1%) and (already quite a distance away) Consum (3.9%). Food Retail specifies that the data refers to the “modern distribution”the large-scale sales channel in stores such as supermarkets or hypermarkets. A growing sector…Beyond how each company is doing or the slice of the pie they are taking, Algori data They reflect that prepared dishes represent an increasingly juicy business. According to the consulting firm’s report, its sales have grown by 8.9% year-on-year, almost double that of the total FMCG (5.3%). The pace of purchase stands out above all, which gives us a clue of its growing success among households. While mass consumption as a whole has risen a discreet 0.8% in 2025, prepared food rose by 6.2%. …and it diversifies. In its analysis Algori also explores what we Spaniards buy when we go to Mercadona, Lidl, Carrefour stores… in search of already cooked dishes. And its conclusion is clear. Almost all branches of the business are growing. Meat-based dishes increased by around 18%, as did creams and gazpachos, which already represent 23% of all sales. Even though we Spaniards buy and cook less and less fishsupermarket menus based on this food also grew by 13%, even more than pasta and rice (10%), tortillas (10%) or pizzas (3%). The report does not clarify whether this data is related to the (increasingly common and diversified) supply of sushi and salmon pokés in supermarkets. “Ready to eat”. These data have little of mystery. As it has become clear This Christmas (and it is not something exclusive to the holidays), we Spaniards are less and less willing to spend hours in the kitchen. The reason? Cultural changes, lack of time, a restructuring of families and even changes in homessmaller and therefore with less space to cook. The industry itself dedicated to the preparation of dishes detected in 2024 an increase in demand of 6.6%, which left average consumption at almost 17.2 kg per person per year. Mercadona has been able to read that scenario and has been betting for years for a specific section of already prepared menus: “Ready to eat”. In 2024 the service was available in 1,260 of its premises. Goodbye cooking? The question that these data leave behind is… Was Roig right when he predicted that by the middle of this century kitchens will have lost ground in Spanish homes? Algori data certainly demonstrates a growing interest in ready-made dishes. Others however, such as a report published in 2025 in the academic journal TIJFGSshow that the majority of Spaniards (59%) still put on our apron daily. Images | Andalusian Government (Flickr) and Mercadona In Xataka | Years ago Mercadona decided to conquer the market with its white brands. And that is making gold for some companies

Mercadona has found a vein to grow beyond its white label and prepared food: tourism

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Hotels, restaurants, agencies, guides… When you think about those who are making a fortune with the tourist boom In Spain, the mind goes directly to the hospitality industry and related businesses, such as holiday apartments. There are, however, other sectors in which the flow of visitors is felt with similar force, such as commerce or food. They show it with astonishing clarity the data from one of the firms most relevant of the retail national, Mercadona. In their stores, tourists represent such an important business niche that this year they will leave 1.8 billion of euros and will account for 4.5% of gross sales. One figure: 126.3 billion. That tourism is a huge business is nothing new. The INE estimates that last year the accumulated spending of foreign visitors in Spain was close to 126.3 billion euros16.1% more than in 2023. And everything indicates that this progression will be maintained in 2025. First, because the flow of travelers keeps growing at a good pace. Second, because this greater influx comes accompanied by an increase of spending: between January and October of this year alone, tourists spent around 118.6 billion eurosa figure that takes into account international tourism. A percentage: 4.5%. The increase in tourists is felt in vacation rentals, restaurants, hotels… and the accounts of one of the large Spanish retail chains, Mercadona. Yesterday Expansion public an article which shows how the footprint of foreign visitors in the Valencian chain has not stopped growing in recent years, both in net terms (millions invoiced) and in the weight that these incomes have in the company’s accounts. If in 2021 Juan Roig’s chain earned 750 million euros thanks to sales to tourists, which represented 2.7% of gross income that year, in 2025 the picture is very different. If Mercadona’s forecasts are met, 2025 will close with a sales volume to tourists of 1.8 billion euros, which will increase its contribution to the company’s total gross turnover to 4.5%. The data They are calculated thanks to purchases paid with foreign cards and are interesting because they show a sustained progression during the five-year period. One year: 2021. The last five years have been anything but boring in the tourism sector, which has gone from suffering the hangover of the pandemic to achieving record results. The INE tables show that in 2021 Spain received 31.2 million foreign tourists, 71.6 in 2022, 85.2 in 2023 and 93.7 in 2024. This year in October it already exceeded the 85 million. This rise has been even an increase in tourist spending: 34.9 billion in 2021 to 126,100 in 2024. All this data seems to have been clearly reflected in Mercadona’s accounts. According to the information to which you have had access ExpansionIn 2021, tourists left 750 million in the chain’s stores, which represented 2.7% of its total gross income. In 2022 these values ​​were already at 1,060 and 3.4%, respectively; In 2023 they amounted to 1,340 and 3.8% and in 2024 they reached 1,550 and 4%. If the forecasts are right, this year will close with sales to tourists worth 1.8 billion euros, 4.5% of gross sales. One question: Was it expected? Yes. And not only because of the increase in tourism, which translates into a greater number of potential foreign buyers. The supermarket employers’ association, AEDAS, calculate that in the most touristy areas these represent around 18% of the total consumers. And if Mercadona stands out for something, it is for its extensive presence in Spanish territory, with more than 1,600 stores spread throughout Spain and a wide presence in the Valencian Community. In fact, at a general level it is estimated that its market share in the sector it’s already around 30% (a high percentage that even exceeds some regions), far above the rest of its competitors. Images | Pedro López (Flickr) and Mercadona Via | Expansion In Xataka | Action supermarkets have gone from being unknown to conquering half of Europe. In Spain they will not have it easy

The fear is that once again we will not be prepared

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If we were thinking that autumn was being kind to us, the State Meteorological Agency has bad news for this weekendsince this season with days of high temperatures is coming to an end. The culprit? A arctic air mass which will work as a switch for the peninsular climate, since in 48 hours we will go from autumn weather to a mid-winter scenario with usually low snow levels in the north of the peninsula. This is something that reminds us a lot of the last ‘Beast from the East’ that we saw at the beginning of the year in the European center and that affected us with a significant drop in temperatures. But in this case the truth is that the polar cold is going to be very present in our peninsula. The arctic corridor. The meteorological situation is defined by the entry of a very cold air mass coming from very high latitudes. This is something that will begin to be noticed from the afternoon this Wednesday, November 19, since the air mass will begin to be injected through the north of the peninsula, causing a widespread thermal collapse and that arrives just after the passage of the storm Claudia. Different evolution. According to AEMET itself, In a special warning that has been issued, the first ‘affected’ will be those who live in the Cantabrian Sea who will see moderate rainfall this Wednesday and that will become snow from about “900 – 1200 m, exceeding thicknesses of 5 cm in points of the Cantabrian mountain range and the northern face of the Pyrenees.” On Thursday this mass will continue to enter our country, and this will translate into snow levels that will drop to 600 meters generally in the northern third of the peninsula. Although the AEMET itself emphasizes above all the snow that expected in parts of the Basque CountryNavarra or the north of the northern plateau because they can be very copious. The worst day. Between the last hours of Thursday and Friday morning is when the snow level will be between 300 and 400 meters in the eastern Cantabrian and upper Ebro, up to 5 cm of snow may accumulate, which will affect the main transport routes in the region. Although in general, we are going to expect snow in Vitoria, Pamplona, ​​Burgos, León, Soria and potentially in Segovia. The figures of the cold. But in addition to these, up to almost 20 cm of snow in 24 hours in the Cantabrian Mountains, we must highlight the drop in temperatures that has already been experienced since this Wednesday in a large part of the country. What is expected is that maximum temperatures will be 10 degrees below zero in much of the peninsular territory, with the exception of the southwest and the coasts where they will be a little higher. It will be on Saturday when a somewhat warmer air mass enters the territory that will cause temperatures to begin to rise and the snow level will also be limited to the highest mountains. Is this snowfall normal? In the month of November it does not seem normal that we have a heavy snowfall at the doors of the country as if it were December or January, as happened with the Filomena storm in 2021. But if we look further back, we can remember one of the historic snowfalls in November that took place in Madrid between November 27 and 30, 1904considered the heaviest snowfall in more than 150 years, with snow accumulations of between 70 and 150 cm that completely paralyzed the city. A problem on the roads. The problem that this storm just arrives on the weekend is a great inconvenience for roads of our country that are subjected to a greater amount of traffic. The models are quite clear in showing that many of the main roads in the north of the peninsula will be exposed to these adverse weather conditions and that is why extreme precautions must be taken on the days of greatest risk in the country. And in the past we have seen how some cars were trapped in the middle of a highway, such as the AP-6, due to these intense snowfalls. And in the end we don’t know where the most aggressive moment of this storm could surprise us. Are we prepared? In Spain, the truth is that experience tells us that we do not give too much importance to these alerts, as we have seen with the different storms or even the DANA. Faced with this new situation, we must keep in mind that we are faced with a heavy snowfall that affects more than half of the country at really low levels. And although there is logistical preparation in the most affected territories to guarantee mobility and security, past experience, such as historic snowfall from Storm Filomena in 2021shows that the country faces great challenges in managing heavy snowfall, with significant difficulties for transportation and basic services in some cases. Some communities, such as Castilla y León, already prepares with 900 snow plows and salting plants and some 4,400 agents for everything that may be to come. Images | AEMET Marco De Gregorio In Xataka | What is a dry storm: when the sky throws lightning, but the rain never reaches the ground

Huawei is coming back. And not everyone is prepared for what is coming

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In China it has already happened. Huawei has gone from being practically dead after the US sanctions of 2019 to lead its domestic market again in 2025 with a 18.1% share. This national resurgence has not been a stroke of luck or the result of blind nationalism (although his subsequent resurgence helped), rather it has been a matter of engineering and strategy: But China is just Act I. Act II, the global leap, is in progress. And when Huawei presses the button, the consumer electronics market will change. Again. What’s stopping them… at the moment There are two things holding Huawei out of China: chips. The current Kirin chips, manufactured in 7 nm by SMIC, work but are two generations behind the Snapdragon or the 3nm Apple Silicon. That means less energy efficiency, less raw power. More importantly: production capacity is limited. SMIC can’t manufacture in volume like TSMC, at least not yet. Huawei can make competitive 5G smartphones, but it can’t make enough to saturate global markets. Software. The other bottleneck. HarmonyOS can boast of being the second mobile ecosystem in China, even surpassing iOS in share. But outside of China, the equation changes. Without Google Play Services, without the complete catalog of Western apps, convincing a European or Latin American user to abandon Android is asking them for a leap of faith. Huawei knows this, that’s why it has invested a lot of money for six years to build AppGallery and its own services. But breaking the inertia of a consolidated duopoly requires more than good intentions: it requires critical mass. Even so, these brakes are, if all goes well, temporary: When both reach the minimum threshold—sufficient chips and viable ecosystem—Huawei will make the leap. And he will not do it timidly. He will do it with the aggressiveness of someone who has been preparing in silence for five years. The scene that no one wants to name Huawei Pura 80 Ultra. Image: Andrey Matveev. There is an uncomfortable question floating in the air: What if Huawei doesn’t come back alone? What if other Chinese brands (Oppo, Xiaomi, Vivo, Realme) adopt HarmonyOS instead of Android? It seems like science fiction, but let’s remember that the Chinese government has been promoting OpenHarmony as a “strategic national operating system.” And that the Chinese government has hinted that companies should reduce their dependence on Android and Windows. That in an environment of increasing technological friction with the West, having our own ecosystem is a matter of survival. If that happens—and political pressure makes it increasingly feasible—the map changes. Android would not lose a manufacturer, it would lose all the big Chinese. Samsung would remain practically Google’s only relevant ally outside of the Apple ecosystem. And HarmonyOS would go from being a local Chinese curiosity to a real global third pole. Not tomorrow, but not in a decade either. In three or four years at most. Besides, andn China Huawei is no longer just consumer electronics: it is an automotive player. Its automotive division has become a key technology partner for several local brands, from Aito until Arcfox. It doesn’t manufacture cars, but it puts the brain into it: sensors, software, connectivity, digital platform. There are already complete “Huawei Inside” models there. That muscle did not exist before the US blockade. And now it is part of the Huawei that could reach Europe: one capable of entering your pocket, your wrist, your home… and also your car. It seems familiar to us. Meanwhile in Europe… Huawei has done something interesting in Europe: not disappear. Here Sales of its smartphones suffered a brutal collapse overnight. Not being able to include Google services was lethal. But they did continue to sell other products: They are the products that do not depend on Google. And they keep the brand visible, preserve the memory of what Huawei was… and pave the way for a better tomorrow. Every GT watch or set of FreeBuds headphones someone buys in Europe is a seed of future loyalty. It is a party waiting in the trenches for it to die down while the others assumed that they would withdraw from the battle. AND Europe will be precisely its real test. No China, they have already won there. Not the United States, where sanctions and market inertia make any short-term operation impossible. Europe, where Huawei became a sales leader and where it built prestige with its commitment to Leica, where there is a certain brand nostalgia and above all where there is no formal veto on its products. Huawei has been in charge of closing local gaps. For example, a bridge to make mobile payments from its platform that compensates for forced trade restrictions. If they manage to offer a good enough ecosystem – it doesn’t even have to be perfect, just enough – there is a market. Because what we (neither consumers nor the industry) cannot forget is that Huawei was never just hardware. It was always a complete value proposition: design, cameras, ecosystem integration. At first, with mediocre quality while being friendly. But then it got better. That doesn’t go away because they block your access to Google for five years. It reinvents itself. The window opens Huawei has already announced its plans to relaunch its smartphones in up to 60 countries. Starting with emerging markets, where its reputation was not so eroded and where US restrictions have less political weight. Europe’s time will come. And when it does, with Kirin chips in volume and a more mature HarmonyOS, the market will shake up. Samsung will have to accelerate, the rest of the Chinese manufacturers – which occupied the space that Huawei freed up, with Xiaomi at the helm – will face a rival that, in addition to returning, will do so without the dependencies that the rest drag, and even Apple can see in them a threat in the medium term. Huawei has been building autonomy for five years while many of us considered it finished. Or … Read more

The industry became obsessed with training AI models, while Google prepared its masterstroke: inference chips

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In recent years, what was truly relevant was training AI models to make them better. Now that they have matured and training it no longer scales as noticeablywhat matters most is inference: that when we use AI chatbots they work quickly and efficiently. Google realized this change in focus, and has chips precisely prepared for it. Ironwood. This is the name of the new chips from Google’s famous family of Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). The company, which began developing them in 2015 and launched the first ones in 2018now obtains especially interesting fruits from all that effort: some really promising chips not for training AI models, but for us to use them faster and more efficiently than ever. Inference, inference, inference. These “TPUv7” will be available in the coming weeks and can be used to train AI models, but they are especially aimed at “serving” these models to users so that they can use them. It is the other big leg of AI chips, the really visible one: one thing is to train the models and quite another to “execute” them so that they respond to user requests. Efficiency and power by flag. The advance in the performance of these AI chips is enormous, at least according to Google. The company claims that Ironwood offers four times the performance of the previous generation in both training and inference, and is “the most powerful and energy-efficient custom silicon to date.” Google has already reached an agreement with Anthropic so that the latter has access up to one million TPUs to run Claude and serve it to its users. Google’s AI supercomputersand. These chips are the key components of the so-called AI Hypercomputer, an integrated supercomputing system that according to Google allows customers to reduce IT costs by 28% and a ROI of 353% in three years. Or what is the same: they promise that if you use these chips, the return on investment will be multiplied by more than four in that period. Almost 10,000 interconnected chips. The new Ironwoods are also equipped with the ability to be part of joining forces in a big way. It is possible to combine up to 9,216 of them in a single node or pod, which theoretically makes the bottlenecks of the most demanding models disappear. The size of this type of cluster is enormous, and allows for up to 1.77 Petabytes of shared HBM memory while these chips communicate with a bandwidth of 9.6 Tbps thanks to the so-called Inter-Chip Interconnect (ICI). More FLOPS than anyone. The company also claims that an “Ironwood pod” (a cluster with those 9,216 Ironwood TPUs) offers 118x more ExaFLOPS FP8 than its best competitor. FLOPS measure how many floating-point math operations these chips can solve per second, ensuring that basically any AI workload is going to run in record times. NVIDIA has more and more competition (and that’s a good thing). Google chips are a demonstration of the clear vocation of companies to avoid too many dependencies on third parties. Google has all the ingredients to do it, and its TPUv7 is proof of this. It’s not the only oneand many other AI companies have long sought to create their own chips. NVIDIA’s dominance remains clearbut the company has a small problem. In inference CUDA is no longer so vital. Once the AI ​​model has been trained, inference operates under different game rules than training. CUDA support remains a relevant factorbut its importance in inference is much less. Inference focuses on obtaining the fastest possible answer. Here the models are “compiled” and can run optimally on the target hardware. This may cause NVIDIA to lose relevance to alternatives like Google. In Xataka | When you’re OpenAI and you can’t buy enough GPUs, the solution is obvious: make your own

Levante’s floods point out that we are not prepared before an increasingly dangerous Atlantic

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Corted roads, trains delays, canceled flights rescue in three provinces. “The neighbors are panic“, said the mayor of Aldaia.” A few weeks after one year after the Dana tragedy, it seems that the phenomenon will be repeated, ” We could read In social networks. Gabrielle has been more than the remains of a hurricane, has been a reminder of all the pain of recent months and a promise: it will not be the last time. But are we prepared? A fact that seems curious, but it is something else. The 2025 hurricanes season has been very quiet, but something that has not happened for 90 years has happened. As Philip Klotzbach explainedwith “Humberto (…) the Atlantic would have a record of 3 of 3 hurricanes that became important in 2025 (Erin and Gabrielle were the others). The last time the first 3 hurricanes of a hurricane season in the Atlantic were important was in 1935”. But, in addition, none has touched earth (Gabrielle has already done it in the form of a postropical storm). That is, are the great Atlantic hurricane factory changing? Martín León has a good summary of the situation. The three cyclones “(1) have been formed from tropical waves of the east coming from Africa, (2) have moved through warm open waters, (3) have quickly intensified over very warm waters in the western Atlantic, (4) have recurred, or resort to the east to experience an extroatropical transition and (5) they will reach or reach the European coasts (transformed into the European coast postropical). It is true that it is early to draw conclusions. Until now (and despite the forecasts that it was going to be much stronger) “the 2025 hurricane station It is still close of the normal. “This was commented on by Martín León is curious, but is far from becoming a trend. And none of that changes the real problem. What problem? The current situation has taught us three things: the first one, a year ago, we were not prepared to support a blow like that of the Dana; The second, during this year, is that our institutional system does not seem capable of preparing quickly; And the third, these days, is that Valencia was not an isolated event, but a systemic risk in dozens of points of the country. Whether or not the change in tendency in the Atlantic, the situation is clear: climate change It exposes us to increasingly extreme meteorological phenomena. And our approach is the same as that of the last decades: nothing. But is this really new? Yes and no. As Emilio Rey explained to us“This type of phenomena has a period of recurrence of a certain time. Some occur every 20 years, another 50 or 100 years. But we know that it will happen again. It has always passed and will continue to happen in the future because our situation on the planet and the circumstances of this time of the year allow it. It will not pass every year but it will happen.” In any case, with climate change the frequency with which the strongest phenomena affects us will be modified. What the infrastructure of Castellón, TarragonaValencia or Saragossa There is much to do. Image | Via Stormyalert In Xataka | Google has demonstrated with its AI that the prediction of storms and hurricanes is outdated. This is how your new model works

How the city is prepared for one of the biggest tourist events of the year

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Malaga prepares to receive the comic-with next week. From September 25 to 28the capital will become neuralgic leisure center in Spainfranchise One of the most recognizable brands of the entertainment industry. A unique space for half a week that also makes clear its deep union with the city that welcomes it. We have asked ourselves how Malaga has prepared for Comic-Con, we have talked with hotels, restoration and transport and these are the answers. In Malaga better than anywhere else. Since his announcement, the fact that the Comic-Con is celebrated in Malaga has granted a special seal to the event. His first presentation was carried out in the city itself and there was a combination of international pop culture, with Marvel and Star Wars as flagships of the global fandom, with the much more native Malaga style, with dancers between droids and superheroes. Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, president of the Junta de Andalucía, said in that event that “for the Andalusian government, supporting this event is to consolidate Andalusia as a reference of digital art and pop culture.” The intention is clear. It is done in Malaga. Before the final approval of Malaga as the first headquarters outside the United States, a company delegation examined spaces, communications and other infrastructure, according to means like Malaga’s opinion. It is not a banal decision: The first calculations Extended by the organization talk about more than 30 million euros of economic impact, always according to Comic-Con. In any case, the city must be prepared. Hotel occupation. Although September is a month in which the hotel occupation traditionally lowers compared to August, the comic-with could change those figures. The Association of Hotel Entrepreneurs of the Costa del Sol (AEHCOS) estimates that the average occupation It could be around 87.65%, which represents a decrease with respect to the occupation of 88.74% last year. All that would change in the last days of the month, thanks to the influx that The organization estimates in 120,000 attendees. For those days, occupancy levels are expected above 90%, which could also extend the demand to nearby municipalities such as Torremolinos, Rincón de la Victoria or Benalmádena. A different tourism. Although tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday are exhausted since last May, Málaga prepares for the arrival of a tourism with a different profile: younger and more specialized, with medium-high purchasing power and therefore, with requirements other than traditional tourism. To the entry with food and drink to the comic-withas well as the possibility that visitors leave and return, a considerable increase in influx to restaurants, coffee shops and bars close to the Palace of Fairs and Congresses is expected, although it has been a decision not exempt from controversy and that has generated FACUA protests. The Comic-Con in the Palace of Fairs and Congresses. According to FYCMA’s own datathis year it is expected that up to 200,000 visitors will pass through the recess, an increase of 20% compared to the previous year. More than half of them could be visitors to the Comic-Con. Throughout 2025, FYCMA will organize more than one centers of fairs and congresses, but the comic-with is the “spearhead of its international projection.” According to the organization, the event “is a qualitative leap for its impact and the global scope of its theme.” And to get there. Transportation will experience reinforcements to facilitate access to FYCMA, although we have not been able to specify what will consist of exactly not obtaining a response from the city’s mobility area. If we get more precise data we will include them in the post, but for now we will know that the closest bus lines to the FYCMA (4, 19, 20 and 22) will have reinforced frequencies and greater operability during the event. In addition, the N3 night line will be available from central areas to the enclosure for those who attend activities at that time. As for the Metro, line 1 has a nearby stop (Sports Palace and Carranque), and the frequencies are expected to increase during the days of greater influx nearby, in lines C1 and C2. Although special routes have not been announced, the volume of travelers could lead to reinforcements at peak times. Header | Connor Gan in Unspash / Jesper Brouwers in Unspash In Xataka | This decision of George Lucas about his legacy is so important that he has gone for the first time to announce it

White brand and prepared dishes

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If there is a formula for commercial success, Mercadona seems to have found her. The Valencian chain continues to grow and reinforces its market share, which already exceeds 27% at the state level and even reaches 34.1% in Levantewhere he enjoys a special force. Behind these data there is a lucky combination of factors among which are mainly three: their ability to capture great purchases and their commitment to White marks and prepared dishes and ready to eat. The big question is … Does Mercadona have a roof? What happened? That Mercadona seems to have no roof in its commercial expansion. The Last data of Worldpanel by numerator show that their market share is 27.3% If we attend to the value of purchases, a percentage that makes the Juan Roig chain highlight in the sector. And not only because it is the one with the greatest weight (Carrefour and Ifa follow, with quotas of about 10%, and Lidl, with 6.9%). The Valencian company has continued to strengthen over time and takes an increasing bite of household consumption. Is it still growing? Yes. And more than its competitors. The WorldPanel study shows that during the first eight months of 2025 Mercadona expanded its quota 0.7% compared to the same period of 2024. Lidl, Eroski, Dia, Consum, Aldi or the IFA group also grew, but at a lower pace. As a reference, at the end of last year Worldpanel I calculated that the market share of the Juan Roig chain was 26.4%. Eight months later that percentage has grown until the barrier of 27%has exceeded. How have you done it? Mercadona’s growth does not respond to a single cause. At stake they enter Many factorsalthough perhaps one of the most relevant is that the Valencian chain has managed to reach many buyers, loyalty and (fundamental) to get ‘against’ the trend of global consumption. We explain ourselves. Mercadona not only leads the sector as regards value quota. He also does it in buyers (91.3%) and in faithfulness (29.9%). It grows on both fronts and also takes an overwhelming advantage to the rest of the competitors. And what about the trend? That is another key. WorldPanel technicians have detected that, although in general the “great consumption” (label that identifies the goods for daily use, low price and high demand) has grown 3.5% during the first months of the year and the “food inside the home” does so at a rate of 5.4%, the Spaniards are selective when filling the fridge. What does that mean? That we make a greater number of visits to the supermarket, compare prices and take smaller baskets. “Households complete the purchase by visiting more than one chain, even the same day,” The report requireswhich points out that over a year we visit on average about 6.5 different chains and there are those who even go to more than one in the same day to make the purchase. Mercadona seems to have the formula to get off the way of that trend and that its clients leave their establishments with the full cars. “Capitalizes the big baskets preventing your buyer from completing your purchase in other chains”, collect the study. That trend explains its high market share, especially pronounced In the Levante“its main area of ​​influence.” There the consultant estimates that Mercadona’s footprint rises to A resounding 34.1%. Is there more? Yes. Mercadona’s boom coincides with that of two other products for which Roig’s chain has clearly opted. The first is the white mark. Although in recent months Worldpanel has appreciated a “deceleration” In the growth of this type of products (those that look the distributor brand, as a landowner in the case of Mercadona or Auchan if we talk about Alcampo), its evolution in the set of 2025 is being good, with a clear increase. To be more precise, the consultant has detected a 1.7 -point rise between January and August. So much so, in fact, that the white mark It is already 45.9% of consumer spending. A year ago that percentage marked 44.2% and in 2023 it was 43%. The reality is that little by little these teachers have gone shaking stigmasexpanding its presence in the baskets regardless of the fluctuations of the economy. What does Mercadona sell? That is another key to the good streak of the chain. As Slide EFE, in the Mercadona baskets they have gained weight strategic products such as eggs and fish, but also a merchandise for which the chain has clearly opted over the last decade: the prepared dishes. The agency indicates that they are already present in 19.5% of purchases and in Your report The consultant estimates that the value of this type of food ready to consume has shot 49% in just three years, between 2022 and 2025. These data confirm the Mercadona aim, which has been betting on its line at least eight years ‘Ready to eat’with a rich range of prepared dishes that includes from entrants or pizzas to lentils and meatballs. In Your last annual report The company revealed that in 2024 it had 1,260 stores with that section and since then it has not stopped expanding it, with New openings In recent months. Roig himself He has recognized who believes that in the middle of the century homes will no longer have kitchens. People will feed with the dishes he buys out of home. Does the format matter? Yes. And that is something that has also helped Mercadona. The WorldPanel study shows that so far this year the activity has grown in the Short assortment chains (such as Aldi, Dia, Lidl and Mercadona) and the regionalwhich also have been experiencing a positive evolution for some time. On the contrary, they have ‘punctured’ hypermarkets, “the format that suffers the most in what we have been from year,” They clarify The authors of the study. That has taken its toll on the French chain Carrefour, which has lost customers through that way. Images | Wikipedia (Carloss) In Xataka … Read more

China will premiere its new Hong Kong in December. And Europe is not prepared for what is coming

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December will mark a turning point in the Chinese commercial strategy. The island of Hainan will launch its large -scale independent customs operation, becoming The new nerve center For international trade with China. A movement that arrives five years after Hong Kong lost his historical role as a bridge between the East and West. The western entrance door to China. Hong Kong has lost much of its appeal to Western companies since 2020, when Beijing The National Security Law imposed In the territory. This change in Hong Kong has been one of the ingredients that have contributed to the cooling of foreign investment in China, and that adds to a list that includes The growing geopolitical tensionsminor growth prospects and increased risk perceived after Trump’s return to power. The former British colony, which for more than two decades had worked as the privileged entrance door to China, no longer offers the predictable commercial environment sought by Western multinationals. A new commercial bridge. Hainan is presented as the “new and improved Hong Kong”, and The figures They support it more and more: 74% of Tariff lines They will have tariff -free products, compared to current 21%. Tax free items will go from 1,900 to 6,600. In addition, imported products that experience at least 30% added value when processing in Hainan will be able to enter Chinese continental territory without tariffs. That is, China is creating its freer economic zone just when the rest of the countries are fragmented in commercial blocks. Prepare, Europe. European companies now face a dilemma: maintain coherence with the geopolitical positions of their governments or take advantage of a real economic opportunity. While Europe debate A separation Of its financial connections on the country, Beijing is offering commercial conditions that will be difficult to reject for many multinationals. The Chinese strategy is clear: to turn Hainan into an irresistible magnet for foreign investment at a time when geopolitical tensions are at its highest point. The signals are already there. First semester data show that companies with foreign investment in China registered A 2.4% growth In its commercial value, reaching 751,720 million euros. The number of foreign companies with commercial activities in China amounted to 75,000, the highest figure for the same period since 2021. Switzerland, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany increased their direct investment by 68.6%, 59.1%, 37.6% and 6.3% respectively. What comes now. Europe has not shown a clear strategy yet. While the United States maintains a more defined position in Its strategic competition with ChinaEuropean countries are debated among their economic ties with the Asian giant and pressures to align with Washington. Hainan represents the Chinese commitment to demonstrate that it can offer better conditions than any other emerging market, precisely when its economic model is most questioned. The countdown has begun. December 18China will officially open its new gateway to the world. Cover image | Denny Ryanto In Xataka | China has a prey capable of changing the rotation of the earth. Now they are building an even bigger

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