EMQQ Global Performance Overview
The EMQQ Index declined 8.5% in September. YTD, the index is down 23.2%.
The FMQQ Index fell 8.2% for the month. YTD, it has declined 13.7%.
The INQQ Index declined 7.0% in September. YTD, it is down 11.6%.
The leading positive contributor to performance for the EMQQ Index in September came from XP Inc in Brazil and Allegro, the leading e-commerce player in Poland and Eastern Europe. The former rose 15.2% while the latter improved by 7.8%. The largest detractors for the month were Sea Limited and Mercadolibre, declining 14.2%. and 10.7% respectively.
Sources: Bloomberg, Company financials
At a Glance:
Alibaba Expands Full-Stack AI Strategy With Launch of New Chip
Chart of the Month
Alibaba Expands Full-Stack AI Strategy With Launch of New Chip
Alibaba significantly expanded its artificial-intelligence roadmap during its annual Apsara Conference in September. The company unveiled the Zhenwu V900, its next-generation proprietary AI chip, which Alibaba says offers roughly three times the performance of its predecessor. Alibaba also disclosed that its next-generation Qwen models are expected to scale to between 5 trillion and 10 trillion parameters, while management set a goal for Alibaba Cloud's global data-center capacity to exceed 20 gigawatts by 2032. The announcements demonstrate Alibaba's increasingly integrated AI strategy spanning semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, foundation models and AI agents, positioning the company to participate across multiple layers of China's expanding AI ecosystem.
Nubank Launches Financial Products in the United States
Nubank took an important step toward becoming a global digital financial platform in September with the launch of its first financial products in the United States. Through a partnership with FDIC-insured Lead Bank, Nubank began offering high-yield deposit accounts paying 3.50% APY, fee-free domestic and international transfers, and a no-annual-fee credit card offering 1.5% cashback. The company also introduced Nu Global, a multi-currency digital account designed to facilitate transfers across more than 35 countries. With nearly 139 million customers across Latin America, Nubank's U.S. expansion provides another avenue to extend its digital-first financial-services model into a large new market.
Sea Deepens AI Investment with NVIDIA's Next-Generation Platform
Sea announced in September that it will become the first enterprise in Southeast Asia to adopt NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform, strengthening the computing infrastructure behind its broader artificial-intelligence strategy. Sea plans to use the additional computing capacity to develop and deploy AI models and intelligent agents at greater scale across its businesses. The investment is particularly relevant for Shopee (it’s e-commerce platform), where AI is increasingly being deployed across advertising, product discovery, merchant tools and customer engagement. Sea has described its ambition as becoming an 'AI-native' company, highlighting the growing role artificial intelligence could play across Shopee, Monee (its fintech unit) and its broader digital ecosystem.
MercadoLibre Helps Small Businesses Adopt AI in Mexico
MercadoLibre highlighted the growing reach of its commerce and technology ecosystem in Mexico during Mercado Libre Experience 2026 in September. The company reported that 47% of small and medium-sized businesses using its tools had their first interaction with artificial intelligence through assistants available on the platform, while four in ten small businesses using these AI solutions said they increased sales. MercadoLibre also operates more than 140 logistics centers across Mexico, and one in five Mexican small businesses now participates in its ecosystem. The figures illustrate how MercadoLibre is combining commerce, logistics, payments and AI tools to help small businesses expand their digital capabilities and reach new customers.
India’s quick-commerce leader Blinkit continues to become increasingly important to parent company Eternal. A recent S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis highlighted how Blinkit’s rapid expansion could become an increasingly meaningful driver of profitability for the group. As Blinkit scales its store network and order volumes, fixed costs can be spread across a larger revenue base, while greater density can improve delivery efficiency, utilization and unit economics. This creates the potential for significant operating leverage as the business matures. With quick commerce continuing to gain traction among Indian consumers and Blinkit maintaining a leading position in the market, the business appears well positioned to become an increasingly important contributor to Eternal’s long-term growth and profitability.
Meta’s early success with MUSE, its new personal AI agent, offers an early glimpse of how powerful AI could become when distributed through an already-scaled digital ecosystem. Rather than asking users to adopt an entirely new platform, Meta can introduce advanced AI capabilities directly into products consumers already use. Tencent has a similar opportunity through WeChat. With roughly 1.4 billion monthly active users, WeChat provides Tencent with an enormous built-in distribution channel for AI. New AI capabilities can be integrated directly into everyday activities such as messaging, search, content discovery, commerce, and services. Meta’s experience suggests that AI could ultimately strengthen the competitive advantages of large digital platforms by making their vast existing user bases increasingly useful, personalized, and commercially valuable.
Source: Tencent financial disclosure as of Q2 2026