SOCIAL MEDIA
Disney to work with Twitter
Walt Disney Co and Twitter Inc said they will work together to create live content and advertising opportunities on the social-media platform using Disney’s properties, bolstering Twitter’s push to become a destination for premium streaming video. Twitter and the Disney-owned ESPN sports network are scheduled to announce specific live shows in development this week at their NewFront presentations in New York, the companies said in an e-mailed statement. The news sent Twitter shares up as much as 6 percent to US$30.74 in New York trading.
TOBACCO
Japan Tobacco profit falls
Japan Tobacco Inc’s spate of acquisitions overseas is helping to stem declines in cigarette sales at home. Operating profit for the maker of Winston and Mevius cigarettes fell 1.5 percent to ¥146.8 billion (US$1.3 billion) in the three months ended on March 31 compared with a year earlier, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement yesterday. Asia’s most valuable cigarette maker has spent more than US$3 billion in the past year to pick up companies in Russia, Indonesia and the Philippines. That has helped ease the increasing pressure it faces as global regulations on smoking tighten and rivals challenged the company at home with competing high-tech smoking devices. Overseas, the company saw earnings gains in several key markets, including Taiwan and Russia, even as demand in its home market waned.
REAL ESTATE
Australian drop continues
Australia’s property prices fell last month for a seventh straight month, as the heat continues to come out of residential markets in its two largest cities. National housing prices fell 0.1 percent from March, CoreLogic Inc data released yesterday showed. The pace of decline in Sydney’s once-sizzling market quickened, with values falling 0.4 percent, down 3.4 percent from a year earlier. Prices in Melbourne also fell 0.4 percent. Prices across the eight state and territory capitals fell 0.3 percent from a year earlier, the first decline since November 2012.
CYBERCURRENCY
Bitcoin jumped 36%
Bitcoin’s value last month jumped 36 percent, the biggest monthly gain since December last year, when it soared to almost US$20,000 before quickly crashing to as low as US$5,922 in January. The rally is leaving advocates optimistic. “The repair process has slowly begun,” said Rich Ross, Evercore ISI’s head of technical analysis in New York. “It’s fairly fragile.” Bitcoin is largely driven by psychology, Ross said, and its ability to break out of its four-month downtrend and reclaim the 50-day moving average are going to be part of the repair process. “The true test of this post-tax date rally will be a sustained move back above US$10,000,” said John Spallanzani, a portfolio manager at Miller Value Partners in Baltimore. “That is the key level for bulls to retake.” Bitcoin last traded at US$9,022.91 according to the tracking site CoinDesk.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Koum leaving Facebook
WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum on Monday put out word that he is leaving Facebook Inc, which bought the smartphone messaging service four years ago for US$19 billion. US media reports indicated that a disagreement with Facebook over the privacy of user data might have also been a factor in Koum’s decision to quit his position and he is also likely to leave his seat on the firm’s board.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained