COMPUTERS
App downloads hit 10 billion
Apple’s App Store hit 10 billion downloads on Saturday, the California company announced. “Thank you. Ten billion times. The App Store has reached 10 billion downloads. Thanks for getting us there,” Apple said in a message on its Web site. The App Store offers more than 300,000 free and paid mini-programs known as applications, or apps, for Apple’s popular iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Apple reported a record quarterly net profit of US$6 billion last Tuesday, a day after the company’s iconic chief executive, Steve Jobs, announced he was going on medical leave.
SHIPPING
Dubai World gets financing
The shipbuilding and repair arm of indebted state conglomerate Dubai World says it has secured US$200 million in immediate financing and plans to begin talks with creditors to restructure its debt. Drydocks World said in a statement on Saturday that seven of its existing lenders provided a US$200 million working capital loan. That financing is good through the end of April. The company says it hopes to complete the broader debt restructuring in the coming months.
ACCOUNTING
Firms to miss profit targets
UK companies will miss more of their own profit forecasts this year as government spending cuts restrain the economy, business adviser Ernst & Young LLP said. Publicly traded companies announced 196 so-called profit warnings last year, a 12-year low, as the UK recovered from recession, according to an e-mailed report published yesterday by Ernst & Young’s UK unit, based in London. “There are already signs that 2011 could be more testing for some parts of the UK economy,” Keith McGregor, restructuring partner at Ernst & Young, said in the report.
TRADE
China imposes dumping tax
China will levy an anti-dumping tax on X-ray security scanners made by European companies, the Ministry of Commerce said. An investigation showed that European makers of the scanners harmed local manufacturers by dumping the devices in the Chinese market, the ministry said yesterday in a statement on its Web site. China will impose a tax ranging from 33.5 percent to 71.8 percent on such imports for the next five years, effective today, according to the statement.
? MINING
S Korea-Ethiopia ink deal
South Korea and Ethiopia agreed to jointly develop rare metals in the African country, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement posted on its Web site yesterday. The countries will explore for rare metals such as tantalum and lithium in Ethiopia and discuss South Korea purchasing a stake in Ethiopia’s tantalum mine, the statement said, without disclosing financial terms.
? REAL ESTATE
Market stays weak in Dubai
Dubai’s real-estate industry will remain under stress with occupancy levels dropping because of “massive new supply,” according to CB Richard Ellis Group Inc. “Oversupply will remain a fixture for the foreseeable future in both the office and residential sectors, but some of the negativity may be offset by forecasts of a significant economic recovery over the next two years,” CB Richard Ellis said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Residential apartment lease rates in both freehold and non-freehold areas of Dubai dropped by about 4 percent in the fourth quarter, while they fell 17 percent on a year-on-year basis, CB Richard Ellis said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
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