H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (9 November 2018) – Koh Young Technology Celebrates Delivery of 13,000th Inspection System + I Can’t See Berkshire’s Bottom Line: A new accounting rule makes it difficult for investors to make sense of annual reports.

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (9 November 2018) – Koh Young Technology Celebrates Delivery of 13,000th Inspection System + I Can’t See Berkshire’s Bottom Line: A new accounting rule makes it difficult for investors to make sense of annual reports.

Companies

• From unicorn to reality, Mercari searches for the magic; Flea market app turns in $24.6m loss to nervous investors (Nikkei)
• Xinhua News Agency debuts AI anchors in partnership with search engine Sogou (SCMP)
• Ctrip Isn’t the Last Stop for China’s Troubled Train; The writing is on the wall for big-name tech stocks as consumers pull back. (Bloomberg)
• Short Bets Mount on Tencent-Backed China Food Delivery Giant (Bloomberg)
• Lenovo’s Profit Beat Came From Accounting Gains; The PC maker’s balance sheet is the main reason why earnings came in higher than expected. (Bloomberg)
• Online Gamers Snap Back in Hong Kong With More Wild Moves (Bloomberg)
• Korea’s top game firms post disappointing Q3 earnings (Investor); NCSoft hopes to shoot ahead with new mobile games next year (Investor); Nexon invests in Swedish game company (Investor)
• Koh Young Technology Celebrates Delivery of 13,000th Inspection System (iconnect)
• Iress today announced that CMC Markets Institutional, a leading provider of liquidity solutions used by many banks, brokerages, funds and dealing desks across the globe, has adopted its order management system. (FE)
• Delta Electronics showcasing CNC-based smart machine tools at TMTS 2018 (Digitimes)
• Trade war hastens key Apple supplier Pegatron’s shift from China (Nikkei)
• Facebook launches Australian used car listings, partners with Carsales (Age)
• Revenue Group shares rise 4% on partnership deal with Public Bank Bhd (Msia)

BATTSS – Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, TSMC, Softbank, Samsung

• Baidu Leads Asian Borrowers in Search for Bond Buyers (WSJ)
• Alibaba Goes International to Hit New Singles’ Day Record (Bloomberg); Ten years of Singles’ Day, China’s ridiculously huge shopping festival (qz)
• Tencent Stops Flogging the Dead Horse of Old Titles; Marketing growth was outpacing revenue following China’s crackdown on games. The latest turn is sensible. (Bloomberg)
• Tencent to Check All Gamers’ IDs by 2019 in Unprecedented Move (Bloomberg)
• Did Samsung’s Bixby just beat out Siri, Alexa and Google? (AFR); Foldable Phones Are a Chance for a Tired Industry; Samsung has announced a potentially disruptive innovation. Now it’s important not to mess it up. (Bloomberg)

FAANNMG – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Netflix, Microsoft, Google

• Google thinks seriously about a subscription model (AFR)
• Nvidia’s New Graphics Cards Could Be Slow to Take Off (Barron’s)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

• Over 10 million users make extra income on Kuaishou (Technode)
• Tech Haunts Hong Kong’s Stocks as Earnings Start to Fall Short (Bloomberg)
• China’s Tech Fortunes Tumble As Investors Turn Away From Public Listings (Forbes)
• Douyin’s monthly active user numbers soar higher to 400m (KRA)
• China Steel Website Drops Dual-Class Structure for IPO (Bloomberg)
• China’s drone makers zero in on armed forces; Military expected to absorb any excess capacity in fast-growing industry (FT)
• Billion-dollar tech startups hold promise for China’s economy; Four cities provide greenest pastures for burgeoning number of unicorns (Nikkei)
• Travel activities startup KKday lands investment from Alibaba and Line (Techcrunch)
• Parking parking share “akippa” exceeded 1 million members, started from a sales company with 0 engineers (Techcrunch)
• This Diwali, here’s how Gujarat traders made e-commerce firms suffer; The traders are ordering expensive items and returning them, claiming that by doing so, they are forcing online retail companies to take a hit on packaging and courier (BS)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

• Andreessen Horowitz leads $154 million investment in corporate travel startup TripActions, at over $1 billion valuation (VB); New Tech Unicorn TripActions Aims to Bring AI to Business Travel (Bloomberg)
• At Disney, It’s a Whole New Messy Kingdom; A streaming service, a megamerger and consumer confusion all come with a price. (Bloomberg); Disney’s Iger Plots Online Future With a Little ‘Star Wars’ Help (Bloomberg)
• AMD Chief Lisa Su Aims to Take Massive Market Share From Intel (Barron’s)
• Square Stock Dives on Disappointing Profitability Guidance (Barron’s)
• ANGI Homeservices Rises as a New CEO Prepares to Step In (Barron’s)
• Yelp Tumbles After Warning That Growth Will Continue to Slow (Bloomberg); Yelp: under review; Flexible contracts add to cost of sales (FT)
• Zillow: realty check; Overhaul of business model was well conceived and poorly executed (FT)
• Germany must close digital technology gap, Merkel ally says (Reuters)
• Israeli cybersecurity firm Coronet partners with Dropbox (Reuters)
• Here Comes ‘Smart Dust,’ the Tiny Computers That Pull Power from the Air; A world covered in sensors that don’t require batteries is near at hand (WSJ)

Life

• The three traits Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella looks for in leaders (qz)
• I Can’t See Berkshire’s Bottom Line: A new accounting rule makes it difficult for investors to make sense of annual reports. (WSJ)