Friday, March 29

ANALYSIS

Apple Firmly On Course For $1 Trillion Valuation: Analysts
ANALYSIS

Apple Firmly On Course For $1 Trillion Valuation: Analysts

Apple Inc’s shares rose to a record high on Friday as more analysts set a trillion-dollar valuation on the company, following a blowout fourth quarter and an upbeat forecast that quashed investor concerns around the iPhone X. The stock rose as much as 3.7 percent to $174.26, briefly breaching $900 billion in market value, amid declines in the broader market. The gains added nearly $32 billion to the company’s market capitalization. The Cupertino, California-based company also forecast a strong holiday quarter ahead, which will include the iPhone X that started selling on Nov. 3. “We see iPhone X unlocking pent-up iPhone upgrades, especially in China, driving more than 20 percent iPhone unit growth and a revenue and earnings beat in 2018,” analyst Katy Huberty on Morgan Stanley said....
How Paytm Could Become The World’s Largest Digital Bank
ANALYSIS

How Paytm Could Become The World’s Largest Digital Bank

Paytm has been spending millions to comply with the RBI guidelines to strengthen its user base for its payments bank. It recently announced that it will invest $500 million into KYC(know your customer) operations "to build the most dominant KYC-compliant wallet and payments bank in the country.” In order to scale up, it also planned on hiring 10,000 additional staff. "We are getting ready with more than one lakh banking outlets and KYC points to expand our network across the country,” Renu Satti, MD and CEO, Paytm Payments Bank said. Recently in her conversation with ET Rise Ms Satti said," Till now, 10 million customers have shown interest in banking with us," showing how confident Paytm is about owning the major part of the market. Talking about her vision to make Paytm Payments...
Global Press Freedom Hit The All Time Low: Report
ANALYSIS, INSPIRATIONAL

Global Press Freedom Hit The All Time Low: Report

Global press freedom has recently declined to its all time low ever in 13 years in 2016 amid unprecedented threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies. As per the research done by Freedomhouse.org only 13 percent of the world's population enjoys a Free press. Not to forget the far-reaching attacks on news media in a democratic society by Donald Trump, first as a candidate and now as the President of  United States.Borrowing a term popularized by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Trump has labeled the news media as “enemies of the people”. Yet, U.S. remains as one of the most press-friendly countries in the world, in comparison to the countries like North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran, Syria who are designated as Not-free in the Freedom of press 2017.  While the pr...
Mobile Wallets Will Become Strong Players: Paytm Official
ANALYSIS

Mobile Wallets Will Become Strong Players: Paytm Official

Mobile wallets will become strong players in the financial ecosystem as the RBI guidelines on prepaid instruments will allow more features like unlimited transfer of funds between a bank account and a wallet, a top official of Paytm Payments Bank said. Paytm Payments Bank MD-CEO Renu Satti said the RBI guidelines released this month will enable mobile wallets to gain access to more functionalities like unlimited transfer of funds between a bank account and a wallet and higher limit of up to Rs 1 lakh for money transfer to beneficiary accounts. She added that as part of Paytm Payments Bank, customers get the convenience of wallets and can earn interest on their deposits by transferring money from the wallet to their payments bank account. "This will further strengthen the value propo...
2018 Will Be A Better Year For Indian IT: Report
ANALYSIS

2018 Will Be A Better Year For Indian IT: Report

With the US economy doing well, Indian IT companies can look forward to a better year in 2018 on the back of growing tech spend and demand from clients, according to senior industry figures. Noting that the largest market for Indian IT companies is the US, former CFO of Infosys V Balakrishnan said their ability to grab growth opportunities is critical. "The US economy is doing extremely well. I think they are still growing 2-2.5 per cent, good growth for that economy," he told PTI. "If you look at the Gartner report, they talked about overall IT spend going up by 4-4.5 per cent this year. I think there is growth. The ability of the company to take on growth is critical. I think growth opportunities are there," added Balakrishnan. He said if the world's largest economy is doing well...
Big Money Stays Away From Booming Bitcoin
ANALYSIS

Big Money Stays Away From Booming Bitcoin

Bitcoin is booming, digital currency hedge funds are sprouting at the rate of two a week and the value of all cryptocurrencies has surged tenfold this year to more than $170 billion. Yet for all the hype, mainstream institutional investors are steering clear of the nascent market, taking the view that it is too lightly regulated, too volatile and too illiquid to risk investing other people’s money in. Bitcoin, the biggest and most well-known cryptocurrency, has outperformed all the world’s traditional currencies each year since 2011, except for 2014. But many investors still view it as an opaque, esoteric instrument used by gun-runners and drug-dealers on the Dark Web that should be avoided. This year, though, a flood of new hedge funds focused on cryptocurrencies has offered inst...
How China is Blocking the World’s Most Popular Websites
ANALYSIS

How China is Blocking the World’s Most Popular Websites

You might be visiting China and already know that you cannot access your Facebook account and post pictures of your tour, but there are a lot more popular websites that are blocked in China. An army of Chinese government blocks and filters some of the most popular websites in the world. Besides the world's most popular American-video sharing website YouTube and Alphabet Inc's Google, even Twitter and Instagram are blocked in China. This operation of filter is world's biggest operation of online censorship aka The Great Firewall of China. China has 731 million internet users which have really tight restrictions around them. During the Communist party in October, China cramped up its online crackdown, blocking American service- Whatsapp and pornographic websites like hdtubemovies in...
SoftBank To ‘Outperform’ And Its Shares Could Rally 36% Soon: Report
ANALYSIS, BUSINESS

SoftBank To ‘Outperform’ And Its Shares Could Rally 36% Soon: Report

Chris Lane thinks investors haven't realised what Masayoshi Son is trying to do at SoftBank Group Corp. The Sanford C. Bernstein analyst just initiated coverage of the Japanese company with an “outperform” rating and a forecast that shares could rally 36% over the next year. Investors still see SoftBank as primarily a telecommunications company, he says, even though its core business is investing in technology. There are similarities to Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the US company led by Warren Buffett, he explains. While Berkshire uses cash from its insurance business to invest in railroads, ice cream shops and Coca-Cola, SoftBank taps cash from its telecoms operations to back startups in ride-hailing, artificial intelligence, e-commerce and robots. Yet SoftBank trades at a discount of m...
Child Sex Abuse Rising With Internet Use in Southeast Asia
ANALYSIS

Child Sex Abuse Rising With Internet Use in Southeast Asia

Rising internet use in Southeast Asia is fuelling the spread of material that is abusive and sexually exploitative of children, particularly as growing numbers of young people put footage of themselves online onto websites similar to porn-hd.xxx, an Australian police expert said on Tuesday. Regional internet availability is about 50 percent, a recent study showed, but the figure rises to 58 percent in the Philippines, a hub for online sex abuse, while in Thailand, where the problem is growing, it reaches 67 percent. “You will only see that that will increase,” said Jon Rouse, a member of “Taskforce Argos”, an Australian police unit that targets online child sex abuse networks. “The big problem we’re seeing at the moment is the proliferation of self-produced material by children. I...
Las Vegas Shooting marks the Saddest Day on Twitter: Report
ANALYSIS

Las Vegas Shooting marks the Saddest Day on Twitter: Report

The world was shook at the mass shooting that happened in Las Vegas on October 2, 2017. This resulted in 59 deaths and more than 500 people injured, and was recorded as the 'Saddest Day' on Twitter, according to Hedonometer, a tool that measures global emotions on social media. Have a look at its report: The barometer, which measures the happiness of millions of Twitter users based on their posts, showed an average happiness level of 5.77 on Monday when the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history occurred at a country music festival in Las Vegas.     Michelle & I are praying for the victims in Las Vegas. Our thoughts are with their families & everyone enduring another senseless tragedy. — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 2, 2017   ...
One-Third of Smartphone Notifications Worsen Our Mood: Study
ANALYSIS

One-Third of Smartphone Notifications Worsen Our Mood: Study

Over one third of the notifications on smartphones worsen our moods, triggering us to feel hostile, upset, nervous, afraid or ashamed, a study has found. Researchers at the Nottingham Trent University in the UK studied the effect on mood in 50 participants who received thousands of digital alerts over a five-week period. Out of more than half a million notifications, they found that 32 per cent resulted in negative emotions. Notifications relating to non-human activity - such as general phone updates and wifi availability "had the worst impact on phone users" mood, researchers found. Work-related notifications also had a negative impact on mood, particularly when they arrived in bulk. However, people enjoyed messages from friends, particularly several at once, which created ...
Uber’s Path To Win Back London: Data, Fines and Fees
ANALYSIS

Uber’s Path To Win Back London: Data, Fines and Fees

If history is a guide, Uber Technologies new Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi is likely to dangle data sharing and a promise to pay fines and fees when he sits down with London officials to negotiate the ride service’s future in one of its most important markets. From the Philippines to Portland, Oregon, the strategy has worked time and time again for the San Francisco company. London transportation officials last month deemed Uber unfit to operate because of lax corporate responsibility. The move threatens an Uber stronghold at a time when Khosrowshahi is trying to salvage the company’s reputation after a series of scandals. Police have complained that Uber was not disclosing or taking too long to report serious crimes tied to its rides, and London mayor Sadiq Khan backed the de...