H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (15 February 2019) – Trend Micro Reports Highest Annual Net Sales in Company’s History for Fiscal Year 2018 ; US. negotiating multibillion-dollar fine with Facebook

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (15 February 2019) – Trend Micro Reports Highest Annual Net Sales in Company’s History for Fiscal Year 2018

Companies

• Chinese surveillance camera supplier Hikvision posts slowest profit growth in a decade (SCMP)
• Trend Micro Reports Highest Annual Net Sales in Company’s History for Fiscal Year 2018 (BW)
• Japan’s Nidec to double China capacity for electric-car motors (Nikkei)
• Nintendo Unveils New Mario, Zelda Games in Bid to Boost Switch; The big franchise names were among 18 titles announced (Bloomberg)
• Kakao’s operating profit plummets in 2018 (Investor)
• Higher US interest rates boost Computershare profits (AFR)
• Inari to benefit from business uptick due to coming 5G rollout (Edge)

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

• Alibaba buys 8% of Bilibili (TIA)
• Ant Financial acquires UK payments firm WorldFirst to advance its global expansion (SCMP)
• Alipay accepted at over 3,000 Walgreens drugstores in the US amid overseas push by China payments firm (SCMP)
• Canadian food delivery startup partners with Alipay to launch food ordering mini-program (Technode)

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

• Berkshire trims Apple stake, adds Suncor and Red Hat, exits Oracle (Reuters)
• US. negotiating multibillion-dollar fine with Facebook – report (Reuters)
• Amazon’s Alexa wants to ease your ‘cognitive overload’ (Age)
• Google’s AI plan to understand everything about humans can go wrong: expert (Investor)
• Amazon launches UPI payments in India, taking on Paytm, Walmart and Google (Forbes)
• Gates Foundation Trust Sells Berkshire, Microsoft Stock (Barron’s)
• Chipmaker Nvidia falls from ranks of tech darlings; Sale of stake by SoftBank’s Vision Fund comes as group hit by end of cryptocurrency boom (FT); Nvidia full-year sales outlook tops analyst views; shares rise; Nvidia has entered into newer growth areas such as data centers and self-driving cars as it looks beyond its bread-and-butter business of selling chips that enhance video games graphics (Reuters)
• Everything still to play for with AI in its infancy; IBM and Google’s differing approaches highlight extent to which field is wide open (FT)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

• How will China’s internet economy develop further? (Part two) (KRA)
• China’s Didi reportedly lost a staggering $1.6 billion in 2018 (TC)
• PEFs face trouble exiting from indebted pay TV provider (Investor)
• Australia’s Canva Has Become A Unicorn By Bringing Online Design Tools To The Masses (Forbes)
• Crossover: A software sweatshop (Forbes)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

• Can Europe’s Latest Tech Darling Keep It Up? Adyen has become one of the continent’s biggest success stories since going public, but investors may be betting on a best-case scenario. (Bloomberg)
• How AI is protecting us from phone-wielding drivers (e27)
• Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann on creating the anti-social media platform (CNN)
• The Increasingly Crowded AI Unicorn Club (CBI)
• Prominent investors stock up on eBay, then activists flex muscle (Reuters)
• Big Tech’s banking foray on regulators’ radar (Reuters)
• The AI That Can Write a Fake News Story From a Handful of Words (Bloomberg)
• Software Update Aims to Keep Drones Away From Airports (Bloomberg)
• AI Redefines Healthcare (hvst)

Life

• Lee Kum Kee oyster sauce dynasty flies up Forbes Hong Kong rich list but can’t touch Li Ka-shing’s fortune (SCMP)