MEDIA
Vivendi sales beat forecast
Vivendi SA beat estimates for first-quarter sales as the French media conglomerate controlled by billionaire Vincent Bollore continued to benefit from a buoyant music market. Revenue rose 5.7 percent on a constant currency basis to 3.46 billion euros (US$3.91 billion) from 3.12 billion euros a year earlier, the company said in a statement yesterday. Analysts had expected 3.38 billion euros. The results might bode well for Vivendi’s effort to sell as much as 50 percent of its Universal Music Group unit, a bright spot for the group.
ADVERTISING
Publicis to acquire Epsilon
Publicis Groupe SA is to pay US$4.4 billion in cash to acquire Alliance Data Systems Corp’s marketing unit Epsilon, as the French advertising group seeks to deepen its digital expertise and expand in the US. The takeover, the biggest-ever for Publicis, was announced by the Paris-based company in a statement on Sunday. Publicis is the owner of agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett Worldwide. Epsilon runs loyalty programs and e-mail marketing and collects data, including transactions, location and Web activity.
AVIATION
Jet Airways cuts operations
India’s ailing Jet Airways Ltd has drastically reduced operations amid talks with investors to purchase a controlling stake in the airline and help it reduce its mounting debt. The airline is operating seven aircraft that are flying only domestic routes, spokesman Gaurav Sahni said yesterday. Jet Airways pilots have been demonstrating in Mumbai over lack of pay. The demonstration was not expected to affect operations, Sahni said.
AUTOMOTIVE
Musk again tweets forecast
Tesla Inc chief executive officer Elon Musk, already in hot water over his Twitter use, posted another production forecast reminiscent of the one that landed him before a US federal judge earlier this month. Musk on Sunday wrote that Tesla would make more than 500,000 vehicles in the next 12 months. A similar tweet sent almost two months ago in which Musk said the company would build half a million vehicles this year led the US authorities to argue he was in contempt of a settlement reached with the regulator last year.
UNITED KINGDOM
London home prices rebound
Asking prices for London homes rebounded this month, and beleaguered sellers hope the extension of the Brexit process will help bolster the property market in coming months. Average values increased 1.1 percent after dropping by the same amount last month, property Web site Rightmove said in a report yesterday. That left prices down 2.2 percent from a year earlier, with the number of sales agreed by real-estate agents falling 5.6 percent. Family homes showed the biggest increase, indicating that the pressure for households to get on with moves is outweighing the political turmoil over Brexit.
EUROPEAN UNION
Copyright reforms adopted
The European Council yesterday adopted copyright reforms championed by news publishers and the media business, but opposed by US tech giants like Alphabet Inc’s Google. Nineteen member countries adopted the reforms that were agreed last month by the European Parliament, but Italy, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland voted against the controversial legislation, and three members abstained.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last