Retail News CRM

Author: Mei Ling Tan

  • Vietnam’s car imports jump 34 pct y/y in Q1 on tax cuts

    Vietnam’s car imports jump 34 pct y/y in Q1 on tax cuts

    Vietnam’s car imports have risen a staggering 34.4 percent from a year ago to 26,500 units, with more than half of them coming from low-tariff markets in Southeast Asia, customs figures show.

    The car import value in the first quarter edged up just 1 percent from the same period last year to $488 million, data from the General Customs Department showed.

    Cars from Southeast Asian countries totaled 14,460 units, accounting for 55 percent of the quarterly import volume and which jumped 67.6 percent from a year ago, the data show. The import from Indonesia increased five-fold.

    The strong purchase was fueled by large tariff cuts from major markets like Indonesia and Thailand, citing several importers. The import tariffs on cars from ASEAN countries have been cut to 30 percent as of January 2017, from 40 percent last year, before being fully removed in 2018.

    The tax cuts have helped reduce the retail price in Vietnam by 6-7 percent, the businesses said.

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  • Dachser Singapore expands airport office

    Dachser Singapore expands airport office

    Dachser Singapore recently expanded its airport office at the Changi International Airport to accommodate growing business.

    The airport office remains at the same location, but has added another level above the existing office, making the total space five times larger.

    “As a consequence of our constant business development and Singapore’s relevance as a gateway for trade and business, our airport office reached its capacity,” said Christophe Vincent, managing director Air & Sea Logistics Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

    The decision to rent more space and group operations, customer service and warehousing under one roof serves to streamline workflows and facilitate internal communication.

    “The Singapore team appreciates the newly renovated modern space that offers a panoramic view of the Changi Airport coastal road and the outlaying islands beyond,” Vincent added.

    DACHSER Singapore’s two locations are fully integrated into the company’s global network. The Singapore branch is at Pioneer on the west side of the city and provides sales, administration and management functions. Together with the airport office and the warehouse, the company can offer top-notch worldwide logistics services to customers.

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  • CAT to propose 2G tower JV with Dtac

    CAT to propose 2G tower JV with Dtac

    Thai state-owned operator CAT Telecom is seeking to enter a telecommunications infrastructure joint venture with private operator Dtac to allow it to continue generating revenue after its concession revenue dries up.

    CAT’s concession agreement with Dtac expires in September 2018, marking the end to the prior build-operate-transfer regulatory regime, whereby private operators paid a portion of their revenues to the state-owned operators. The market is instead transitioning to the more conventional spectrum licensing model.

    After this period CAT will be left without a sustainable revenue stream. Dtac will meanwhile need to transfer its roughly 13,000 2G mobile towers and base stations to CAT. As the deadline approaches, the CAT board is exploring establishing a JV with Dtac for the operation of CAT’s 2G mobile tower assets.

    Under the proposal, Dtac would need to invest nearly 10 billion baht () in exchange for a 51% stake in the venture, which would be named Telecom Tower Co. CAT would take the remaining 49% in exchange for transferring the tower assets to the venture.

    According to the report, the CAT board believes that such an agreement would be mutually beneficial, as it would allow CAT to earn new revenue from the venture, while Dtac would be able to guarantee service continuity after the concession expires.

    The proposal still requires approval from the Thai Cabinet, the report adds. CAT hopes that the venture will help it realize annual revenue of around 10 billion baht per year.

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  • Osram eyes acquisitions of up to $530 million

    Osram eyes acquisitions of up to $530 million

    German lighting company Osram is on the lookout for acquisitions worth up to 500 million euros ($530 million), although there are no specific plans for a deal as yet, its finance chief told Retail News.

    Osram wants to strengthen the areas of electronics and software within its automotive lighting unit and is looking for acquisition targets or partners, Ingo Bank told Boersen-Zeitung in an interview published on Saturday.

    Acquisitions for its Opto semiconductors unit would also be attractive if they opened up access to markets, he said.

    Osram has funds available after the sale of lamps division LEDvance, which brought in gross proceeds of about 500 million euros, and thanks to its strong balance sheet, Bank said.

    “We have a lot of firepower and the ability to act. However, we will not be making the error of buying for the sake of it,” the paper quoted him as saying.

  • Now, Reliance Jio plan subscribers to get 15% discount on AirAsia tickets

    Now, Reliance Jio plan subscribers to get 15% discount on AirAsia tickets

    More than 72 million subscribers of Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) can avail a discount of 15% on their domestic and international travel on Air Asia. Sources said Jio subscribers can avail this discount using the Air Asia’s mobile app for the travel period starting June 20, 2017 till September 30, 2017.

    Air Asia is working on the modalities and will come out with the offer in the next 2-3 days, they added. Air Asia India had earlier during the day tweeted the offer, but had then deleted it. Market analysts said that the scheme fits into Jio’s strategy of targeting the high Arpu (Average revenue per user) customers of its rivals as well as to retain its own high-end users by offering such incentives.

    While launching Jio on September 1, 2016, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani had indicated that the platinum customers of Jio will also be offered a series of “specialized, white-glove services such as concierge services and video call centers”.

    Jio sources said that the company is planning to come out with similar offers related to travel and hospitality for its subscribers.

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  • Apple to open App Accelerator in India

    Apple to open App Accelerator in India

    US tech major Apple will set up an App Accelerator in Bangalore, in order to provide support to Indian developers and help them to transform the design and performance of their apps on its mobile operating system iOS.

    The Accelerator in Bengaluru, the hub of India’s start-up scene, will inspire the next generation of Indian developers, according to the company.

    Each week, Apple experts will lead briefings and provide one-on-one app reviews for developers. The facility will also provide support and guidance on Swift — Apple’s programming language created to build apps for iOS, Apple TV and Apple Watch.

    “India has one of the most vibrant and exciting iOS developer communities in the world and already tens of thousands of developers in India make apps for iOS,” the company said in a statement.

    The App Accelerator at Bengaluru will help to further enrich the iOS app ecosystem.”

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  • Macau police bust WeChat gambling racket

    Macau police bust WeChat gambling racket

    Macau’s Judiciary Police (PJ) arrested seven mainlanders for their alleged involvement in an illegal WeChat gambling operation on April 12, a PJ spokesperson said during a special press conference last week.

    According to the spokesperson, the seven male suspects, aged between 28 and 40, from Zhejiang province solicited gamblers to place bets at local casinos’ VIP tables via WeChat.

    One of the suspects claimed to be a bricklayer while the remainder claimed to be unemployed.

    The spokesperson said the gang had been streaming live gambling from local VIP rooms via the app, adding the police estimated that the racket attracted at least HK$10 million in bets and made a profit of about HK$1.2 million.

    According to the spokesperson, the gang mainly solicited customers from Zhejiang province who paid the gang via bank transfers or Alipay. The spokesperson said police believed that the gang had been “in business” for at least a month.

    The spokesperson said the gang operated out of a suspected illegal inn in Nam Van. The Judiciary Police discovered the illegal gambling activity while investigating the illegal inn.

    The spokesperson said the suspects were facing possible arraignments on illegal gambling charges.

    Several gang members were still at large, the spokesperson said on Thursday.

  • Singapore apartments main target of Indonesian property investors

    Singapore apartments main target of Indonesian property investors

    Indonesian property investors would prefer to go to Singapore if they want to invest in apartments and to Australia to buy houses to be leased out, a survey has said.

    Profit, better guaranteed, is the main reason for investing abroad, the survey Property Affordability Sentiment Index by Rumah.com said here on Sunday.

    Country Manager of Rumah.com Wasudewan said the Indonesian investors chose to invest in Singapore on better infrastructure, stability and security that would be needed by the would be tenants.

    Property Affordability Sentiment Index is an annual survey held by Rumah.com in cooperation with research center Intuit Research of Singapore. The survey involved 1,030 respondents in November-December 2016.

    “Singapore has good transport access locally and internationally. For that Singapore has received an appreciation as the Best Location in Asia for expatriates and the 25th best in the world, according to a survey on Quality of Living by Mercer early this year,” Wasudewan said.

    The results of the surveys matched data from Cushman & Wakefield, an international property consultancy company, which said that in the first half of 2016, Indonesians bought 189 property buildings of various categories in Singapore, or a 23 percent increase compared with the same period in the previous year.

    Purchases by Chinese and Malaysians declines, but purchases by Indonesians rose 19 percent in the second quarter of 2016.

    According to property company Propnex Realty Pte, as quoted from PropertyGuru.com.sg, which handles the sales of luxurious condominiums OUE Twin Peaks in the Orchard Road, Singapore, the developer of the condominiums has succeeded in disposing of almost 50 percent of 86 units built in the first phase at a price of 4 million Singaporean dollar per unit and Indonesians are the main foreign buyers, Wasudewan said.

    He said growing number of Indonesians buy property abroad as technology makes it easier to have information about market in other countries. Indonesians buy property abroad especially in Singapore for commercial purpose.

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  • Facebook Disrupted International Fake Account Operation in Indonesia

    Facebook Disrupted International Fake Account Operation in Indonesia

    Facebook on Friday said it disrupted an international fake account operation that was firing off inauthentic ‘likes’ and bogus comments to win friends it would then pound with spam.

    Facebook’s security team spent six months fighting to neutralize what they saw as a coordinated campaign, according to Shabnam Shaik, a company security manager.

    ‘Our systems were able to identify a large portion of this illegitimate activity — and to remove a substantial number of inauthentic likes,’ Shaik said in a blog post.

    ‘By disrupting the campaign now, we expect that we will prevent this network of spammers from reaching its end goal of sending inauthentic material to large numbers of people.’

    The ring used accounts in a number of countries including Bangladesh, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. The group tried to mask its activities with tactics like connecting with the social network through ‘proxy’ servers to disguise where ‘likes,’ posts or other communications were originating, according to Shaik.

    Facebook said the campaign aimed to trick people into connecting as friends they would later target with spam. The company said it had derailed the operation early enough to spare users that fate.

    The leading social network this week said it has started weeding out bogus accounts by watching for suspicious behavior such as repetitive posts or torrents of messages. The security improvement was described as being part of a broader effort to rid the leading social network of hoaxes, misinformation and fake news by verifying people’s identities.

    ‘We’ve found that when people represent themselves on Facebook the same way they do in real life, they act responsibly,’ Shaik said. ‘Fake accounts don’t follow this pattern, and are closely related to the creation and spread of spam.’

    Under pressure to stymie the spread of fake news, Facebook has taken a series of steps including making it easier to report such posts and harder to earn money from them.

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  • Manila Water to submit scaled-up proposals in projects in both Myanmar and Indonesia

    Manila Water to submit scaled-up proposals in projects in both Myanmar and Indonesia

    Manila Water the water concessionaire for the East Zone of Metro Manila, said it would submit scaled-up proposals within the third quarter of the year for possible water concessions in Myanmar and Indonesia following the completion of its pilot projects.

    In a news briefing after the firm’s annual stockholders’ meeting, the company’s Chief Operating Officer for New Business Operations Virgilio Rivera Jr. said these proposals will be for Yangon City in Myanmar and Bandung City in Indonesia.

    Rivera said the company submitted their report for the successful pilot project that drastically reduces the nonrevenue water in Yangon and expect to complete a similar pilot project in Bandung City, the capital of West Java.

    “With the completion of these pilot projects, we have shown them our best practices and are now ready to propose a scaled-up version,” Rivera said.

    The company’s new President and CEO Ferdinand de la Cruz said it is ready to take on much bigger projects in these cities to the extent of a full-scale water concession like what they have in the East Service Zone of Metro Manila. De la Cruz said the company’s expansion into countries in Southeast Asia will contribute to their goal of achieving a net income of P11.5 billion by 2020 and that half of this should come from businesses other than its Metro Manila concession, currently its single-biggest revenue generator.

    Rivera said the company intends to do more pilot projects in other parts of the Philippines and Southeast Asia as local government units and water districts are more receptive to tapping Manila Water based on its Metro Manila experience.

    In Yangon it partnered with Mitsubishi Corp. to adopt two district metering areas located in South Okkalapa and Insein.

    By the end of 2016, nonrevenue levels in both townships dropped to 14 percent from 54 percent.

    For Bandung, Indonesia’s fourth-largest city, a population of 2.4 million, the company has reduced non-revenue water from a high of 59 percent in September last year to 23 percent in just three months.

    Inc., Rivera said they have also been tapped by SM Development Corp. for five residential projects and will be signing up for five more by early next year.

  • Indonesia`s exports up 15.68 percent in March 2017

    Indonesia`s exports up 15.68 percent in March 2017

    Indonesias exports were up 15.68 percent in March, from US$12.61 billion in the previous month to $14.59 billion, according to Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) here on Monday.

    BPS chief Suhariyanto stated at a press conference that the hike was dominated by an increase in the non-oil and gas exports reaching $13.11 billion, or up 14.86 percent, from the previous month.

    “The export value in March 2017 was recorded at $14.59 billion, up 15.68 percent from Feb. Compared to March 2016, the hike reached 23.55 percent,” he noted.

    The hike in the non-oil and gas exports in March was contributed by an increase in the exports of mineral fuels reaching $459.4 million, or 32.84 percent, he noted, adding that the exports of chemical products were down 9.05 percent, or $31.8 million.

    Non-oil and gas export destination countries in March 2017 include China, with exports to the country reaching $1.7 billion; the US, reaching $1.51 billion; and Japan, recorded at $1.26 billion. All of them contributed 34.72 percent of the total exports. Exports to Europe or 28 countries reached $1.46 billion.

    In total, Indonesias exports from Jan to March 2017 reached $40.61 billion, or rose 20.84 percent from the same period in 2016.

    Non-oil and gas exports in the period were recorded at $36.66 billion, comprising 90.27 percent of the countrys total exports.

    In terms of sectors, exports from processing industries from Jan to March 2017 rose 19.93 percent from the same period in 2016, while agricultural exports jumped 22.84 percent and mining products and others rose 32.26 percent.

    With region provinces of origin, most of the countrys exports were from West Java, valued at $7.00 billion, or 17.23 percent of the total; followed by East Java at $4.43 billion, or 10.90 percent; and Riau at $4.40 billion, or 10.83 percent.

    Indonesias non-oil and gas markets in the period from Jan to March 2017 include China, worth $4.96 billion, or 12.79 percent; the US, worth $4.29 billion, or 11.70 percent; and India, worth $3.41 billion, or 9.29 percent.

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  • China Telecom, Huawei lead group exploring AI in networks

    China Telecom, Huawei lead group exploring AI in networks

    China Telecom and Huawei will lead a new industry working group exploring the use of AI in the deployment and optimization of telecoms networks.

    The European Telecommunications Standards Institute’s (ETSI) Industry Specification Group on Experiential Networked Intelligence (ISG ENI) held their first meeting last week, electing a new chair and vice chair.

    Huawei UK’s Raymond Forbes has been selected as chairman and China Telecom’s Haining Wang will serve as vice-chair.

    Other members of the group include Samsung, the China Academy of Telecommunications Research of MIIT, Verizon UK and Samsung R&D Institute UK.

    Forbes said the purpose of the group is to “improve operators’ experience regarding network deployment and operation, by using AI techniques.”

    Wang added that while SDN, NFV and network slicing technologies are helping networks become more flexible, the complexity of network management is not being reduced, but merely transferred from hardware to software. Experimental Networked Intelligence helps to address this complexity.

    ETSI ENI will work with other major standards groups including ETSI NFV, ETSI MEC, ETSI NGP, IETF, MEF, 3GPP and BBF on the development of the industry specification, and is inviting new members to join the group.

  • Tianjin FAW Xiali Auto expects Q1 net loss to widen

    Tianjin FAW Xiali Auto expects Q1 net loss to widen

    Tianjin Faw Xiali Automobile Says it expects Q1 net loss to widen to 240-290 million yuan from 166.9 million yuan ($24.24 million) year ago.

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  • Cloud Services in Indonesia Provided by Japan’s Leading Network Solutions

    Cloud Services in Indonesia Provided by Japan’s Leading Network Solutions

    FPT Telecom of Vietnam and Internet Initiative Japan on Thursday launched a cloud computing service for individual, business and enterprise customers in Vietnam.

    FPT Telecom has called the new service, FPT HI GIO Cloud, the first full-scale, full-spectrum and quality cloud computing service in Vietnam. Nguyen Van Khoa, general director of FPT Telecom, which is part of leading Vietnamese information technology group FPT, stressed the new service would provide access computing services via a stable network.

    The product enables users to quickly launch virtual machines instead of investing in physical devices.”We will lead the market in Vietnam to tap demand for cloud computing,” General Director of IIJ Global Solutions Vietnam Ryo Matsumoto told Retail News.

    FPT Telecom aims to acquire around 4,000 enterprise customers within a year. FPT Telecom and IIJ also aim to tap individual customers in a country where 70% of the more than 90 million population is expected to have access to the internet by 2020.

    IIJ, one of Japan’s leading internet and network solutions providers, has already launched similar cloud services in Singapore, Indonesia, and Thailand. FPT Telecom and IIJ are looking to launch additional joint projects related to security and network management in the coming years, according to Matsumoto.

    In Vietnam global players such as IBM, Google, Symantec, Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft have launched their own cloud and joint services by teaming up with local telecom companies and using mobile broadband infrastructure. FPT and IIJ’s partnership will further intensify competition in this area.

    Vietnam ranked 14th in the Asia-Pacific region in the Asia Cloud Computing Association’s Cloud Readiness Index 2016, coming after Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia.

  • Link REIT buys Guangzhou mall

    Link REIT buys Guangzhou mall

    Link REIT has bought a shopping mall in Guangzhou for RMB4.065 billion (HK$4.57 billion; US$588.4 million).

    The property, Metropolitan Plaza, is located at No. 8 Huangsha Road in Liwan District. It comprises retail space from basement level one to the third floor and two levels of parking.

    Its gross lettable area is about 85,732 sqm.

    Link REIT said in a stock exchange filing the acquisition was in line with its investment strategy to invest in income-producing real estate which has potential for long-term income and capital growth and to build a large and diversified portfolio of retail and/or commercial real estate in Hong Kong and in Tier-1 cities of the PRC.

    “Guangzhou (being such a Tier-1 city) is mature and the disposable income of Guangzhou residents has been rising. The property will add to Link’s portfolio of investments in Tier-1 cities of the PRC along with its shopping mall in Beijing and an office/retail property in Shanghai.”

    As at February 28, there were 219 tenancies at the property, occupying approximately 94.1 per cent of the total gross lettable area.

    The monthly gross income of the property (excluding management fees) was approximately

    RMB16.06 million. Food & beverage, fashion/accessories and kids/education account for, respectively, 33.4 per cent, 24.7 per cent and 13.7per cent of the total leased retail area.

    Link REIT said Liwan District is one of the most popular mass market shopping and leisure destinations in the city.

    It is also one of the most densely populated districts of Guangzhou, with a population of approximately 930,000 as of 2016. The property is strategically located on top of the intersection of Metro Lines 1 & 6 among the busiest Metro Lines in Guangzhou, with direct access to the station concourse.

    The Guangzhou mall opened for business in 2012.

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