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Good morning from the newsroom of the Financial Times.

Today is Thursday, April 18th, and this is your FT news briefing.

Today, Huawei says it plans on releasing a $600 smartphone,

Pinterest and Zoom price shares in their initial public offerings ahead of market debuts today,

and Uber's self-driving car unit eyes a more than $7 billion valuation.

Then the FT's Gregory Meyer explains why more soybeans are being exported

by the U.S. to China and what that means for trade talks between the two countries.

I'm Mark Filipino and here's the news you need to start your day.

Huawei is planning to release a 5G smartphone for $600 this year as it looks to get competitive in the next generation of

mobile devices. The $600 smartphone is half the price of what analysts expected for the model

from China-based Huawei. A marketing executive told the FT that $300 smartphones

could be possible by next year.

Last year, Huawei overtook Apple

as the second biggest smartphone maker, and it's gaining ground on South Korea-based Samsung.

Scrappbooking website Pinterest is set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange today.

Last night, Pinterest priced shares at $19 each, which is up from the $15 to $17 range

it announced earlier this month. Pinterest is offering 75 million shares in Class A Common Stock,

plus up to 11.2 million shares that underwriters have the option to purchase.

The shares will set up a so-called down round for Pinterest while the company

priced above expectations it's still below the last funding and sources have also

...