H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (18 February 2019) – This Company Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination: Recruit Holdings wants to attract the most consumers in the world by 2030 + $3 Trillion In New Liabilities Are About To Blindside Corporate Balance Sheets

H.E.R.O.’s Journey in Tech (18 February 2019) – This Company Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination: Recruit Holdings wants to attract the most consumers in the world by 2030 + $3 Trillion In New Liabilities Are About To Blindside Corporate Balance Sheets

Companies

• This Company Is Japan’s Top Contender for Global Internet Domination: Recruit Holdings wants to attract the most consumers in the world by 2030. Recruit has also acquired European restaurant-booking site Quandoo, U.K. spa and salon reservation portal Treatwell and Dutch staffing firm USG People, helping to boost sales outside Japan to 46 percent of revenue, from 20 percent five years ago. And it still has a war chest of about $3 billion in cash. The success of its app-based services has raised questions about the value of the company’s traditional media business. Recruit still publishes 54 magazines, and has an employment and staffing services division that accounts for a majority of sales. But the faster-growing media and internet divisions generate two-thirds of operating profit from just about 30 percent of total revenue. (Bloomberg)
• The Dragon Ball franchise had a monumental year in 2018 as it expanded its brand into various avenues with an anime series, film, video games, parade sightings, and various other merchandising opportunities. Toei Animation talked about many of its licensing and merchandising plans for the Dragon Ball franchise coming this year in the February issue of License Global magazine, and one of the efforts includes a special symphony tour in North America. (CB)
• SM Entertainment Details Mutual Benefits Of Partnership With Tencent Music Entertainment (Forbes)
• Delta to boost stake in Thai subsidiary (TT)

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

• ‘Difficult years’ for Baidu as China’s internet goes mobile; Users criticise search results as more content is walled off by rivals Tencent and Alibaba (FT)
• Tencent releases new rules regulating live-streams containing its games (Technode)

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

• Google’s Waymo risks repeating Silicon Valley’s most famous blunder; Larry Page drew the wrong lesson from Xerox bungling the PC revolution. (ATN)
• 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)
• This is Microsoft’s AI pipeline, from research to reality (FastCo)

Asia Tech & Innovation Trends

• How Huawei went from small-time trader in Shenzhen to world’s biggest telecoms equipment supplier (SCMP)
• In China, the fight for AI supremacy starts with the young (Nikkei)
• China’s peer-to-peer lenders fight for survival; Government clampdown on credit cools once-hot business (Nikkei)
• China’s third-party nurse apps may pose safety risks for users (Technode)
• Half of Japan’s regional banks to back Mizuho Bank’s new cashless payment system (JT)
• IPO hopeful AltoStratos eyes Australia’s consumer electronics market (AFR)
• New Zealand to target online giants with digital tax (Reuters)
• Alibaba-Backed Paytm Wants to Cash in on Amazon’s India Distress (Bloomberg)

Global Tech & Innovation Trends

• A Break From Consumer Tech; What kinds of companies will be the next so-called unicorns? A hint: Many of them won’t have much in common with Uber or Airbnb. (NYT)
• Designed by A.I.: Your Next Couch, Sweater, and Set of Golf Clubs (Fortune)
• Lyft to woo investors with fast U.S. growth in IPO race with Uber (Reuters)
• Vision system for autonomous vehicles watches not just where pedestrians walk, but how (TC)
• 3 Technologies That Could Create Trillion Dollar Markets Over the Next Decade (Barron’s)
• Hulu Ad Campaign Spells Out That Its Influencers Get Paid; Streaming service begins new push for its live TV service (WSJ)
• Investors Get Burned After Betting on Electric-Car Metals; Markets like stocks and oil have rebounded this year, but cobalt and lithium continue to fall (WSJ)
• Digital Brands Are Booming. But Can They Save Malls? Developers are creating a new breed of pop-up retail for online upstarts to experiment in brick and mortar. (Bloomberg)
• Citi turns to AI for the early work in approval of corporate loans – and chooses Hong Kong for first testing; Earlier, AI has been tapped to help out on retail consumer loans (SCMP)

Life

• Fear of Failure: Are We Capable of Rising From the Ashes? (ME)
• $3 Trillion In New Liabilities Are About To Blindside Corporate Balance Sheets (ZH)