The Retail News Asia team wishes you peace, joy and successes throughout the coming year. Thank you for your continued support and involvement. We look forward to hearing from you in the years to come.
Author: Mei Ling Tan
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Vietnam to launch commercial 5G service in 2022
Vietnam is set to commercially launch 5G mobile services next year as it seeks to increase the number of internet users by reducing the number of 2G smartphones to under 5 percent.
The Ministry of Information and Communications reported at a meeting Wednesday that the service will be operated with made-in-Vietnam devices. The country aims to have 25 percent of the population using 5G by 2025, it said.
The government had earlier announced its intention launch 5G commercially last year but the service is still on trial. Some radio frequencies have been dedicated and 5G services are being tested in 16 localities since last year.
4G services currently cover 99.8 percent of the country.
State-owned telecom giant Viettel said it has completed research and development work of 5G services. It also said it has successfully run a complete network of 5G services this month.
The communications ministry has said wants more people to switch to 4G and 5G technology by the end of next year.
It plans to have 5 percent or less of the population using 2G phones by the end of next year and to shut down 2G services by 2023.
“This means that by 2023, 100 percent of Vietnamese will be ready to use internet,” the ministry said.
As of last year, Vietnam had 24 million 2G subscribers.
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Delivery Hero to sell Foodpanda Foodpanda Japan
German food delivery group Delivery Hero said on Wednesday it would scale down its Foodpanda operations in Germany and sell the subsidiary’s Japan unit, citing increased competition and labor shortages.
Delivery Hero said Foodpanda would exit Cologne, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, and Stuttgart, though it had only introduced the brand in Cologne, Duesseldorf, and Stuttgart a month earlier as part of a broader expansion program in Germany.
“Facing a very different reality now than we did entering these markets, it is with a heavy heart that we need to pursue other growth opportunities with larger potential,” Chief Executive Niklas Oestberg said in a statement.
The meal delivery market, with players including Uber Eats, Just Eat Takeaway, and Deliveroo, is expected to consolidate as the pandemic-related boom starts to wear off and companies look to adjust operations.
At the same time, the European Commission announced draft rules in early December to give employee benefits to riders and drivers for online delivery firms, a move some companies argue will lead to job losses.
Delivery Hero, whose operations span more than 50 countries, only started in June with the soft launch of its Foodpanda brand in Berlin and then rolled it out to other cities in August.
That return home brought an abrupt end to a truce struck in late 2018, when Oestberg sold Delivery Hero’s German operations to Takeaway.com – its Dutch competitor is now known as Just Eat Takeaway (JET) – for $1.1 billion.
The group also said on Wednesday it would exit the market in Japan, which it entered in September 2020, in the first quarter of 2022 to focus on growth in other markets and niches, especially in the area of quick commerce.
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Some Apple employees will be picketing on Christmas Eve
A tweet sent by an organized group of Apple employees has announced a walkout for Christmas Eve. The tweet, sent under an account called Apple Together, reads, “Calling all Apple workers and patrons! Tomorrow, December 24th, 2021, Apple workers are staging a walkout/callout to demand better working conditions.
The group’s members work in retail, corporate, and AppleCare and are banding together in an attempt to bring change to Apple. Another message inside the tweet asks Apple employees and others not to cross the picket line and says, ” We are Apple. We deserve a respectful workplace. We deserve paid sick time. We deserve protection on the frontlines. We deserve proper mental healthcare.”
At the bottom of the message, the group adds, “Demand that Apple upholds its image with your wallet. Don’t stop in stores. Don’t stop online.” On the AppleTogether website, the organization says, “Apple prides itself on its commitment to diversity, equity, and an environment where everyone can do their best work. But Apple has fallen short of this goal for so many of our current and former teammates, so we made space to share those stories with #AppleToo.”
Considering that Apple has closed eight stores in the U.S. and Canada since the latest COVID surge, and you might find yourself facing a picket line at some of the locations that are open, you might want to delay that visit you’ve been planning. Sure, you can always shop online but not if you want to back the striking employees.
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TikTok ranks as the most visited website for 2021
TikTok was the most visited website this year, according to the 2021 Cloudflare domain ranking, part of its Cloudflare Radar service. After August 10, TikTok became the leading website for most of the days of 2021, especially in October and November.
Here is the ranking of the 10 domains, which we have visited most in 2021:
- TikTok.com
- Google.com
- Facebook.com
- Microsoft.com
- Apple.com
- Amazon.com
- Netflix.com
- YouTube.com
- Twitter.com
- WhatsApp.com
In the 2020 Cloudflare ranking, the winner was Google, which comes as no surprise when the data includes not only traffic to Google.com, but also the most popular Google services like Maps, Translate, and News. Last year, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix were also ahead of TikTok, which was at 7th place back then.
But in 2021, TikTok’s generated traffic skyrocketed. In September, TikTok said that more than 1 billion people visit the site every month. This year, TikTok’s app also became the world’s most downloadable app. It surpassed even the Facebook app, which was the one that held that title.
Cloudflare, a security network that enables secure access to websites, released its Cloudflare Radar service in September 2020 to show the public how we use the internet. Cloudflare Radar monitors internet usage and traffic. Cloudflare Radar also displays new internet trends and provides information on cyberattacks that Cloudflare has detected. For more information about Cloudflare Radar, visit Cloudflare’s site.
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Apple begins iPhone 13 production in India plant
Apple is testing out a new expansion in its iPhone 13 production near Chennai, India, in a trial contract with a Foxconn plant located in the area.
Apple first contracted the Foxconn plant to produce the iPhone 12 5G, but recently a long-winded bout of food poisoning and ongoing protests brought about a full shutdown of the plant (ordered by Foxconn itself), negatively impacting iPhone 12 5G production in the country.
However, neither the series of unfortunate events nor the temporary closure seems to have fazed Apple in the least, the company has already begun a test trial of iPhone 13 production in the same Foxconn plant.
If all goes to plan, Apple plans to not only use this new plant to provide a domestic supply of the latest iPhone flagship series but will also begin exporting units internationally by February of next year.
Even Apple has been affected by the ongoing global chip supply shortage around the world, causing some frustratingly long lead times on iPhone 13 series orders across the board—but that clearly isn’t stopping the company from continuing to expand its manufacturing facilities around the world.
If the stint with the Foxconn plant in Chennai works out, Apple reports that it should significantly improve the global supply of the iPhone 13, as about 20-30% of iPhone production in India in general (and not just in the Chennai plant) ends up being exported internationally.
Although iPhone sales in India have been favoring the slightly older iPhone 12 and iPhone 11 models, the iPhone 13 demand has also already proved greater than the current supply has been able to cover within the country.
With the new domestic Foxconn plant contracted by Apple, Market tracker IDC India’s research director Navkendar Singh has reported that this should finally help cover local demand in India more efficiently, besides improving the global supply:
“A lot of local production scaling up will depend on component availability,” he said. “The local production of iPhone 13 in India may ease a bit the low supplies in the country.”
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Nike eyes recovery as Vietnam factories reopen
Sportswear maker Nike is confident the resumption in production in Vietnam will boost the company’s future recovery.
“Compared to ninety days ago, we are increasingly confident supply will normalize heading into fiscal 2023” as all factories in Vietnam were operational and production was at about 80 percent of what it was before the closures, finance chief Matthew Friend said.
Social distancing in Vietnam, where more than half of Nike’s footwear and about a third of its apparel manufacturing occurs, in the July-September period caused the company to cancel production of roughly 130 million units.
But as the government eased its social distancing regulations early October, its factories have reopened.
The company forecasts growth to be in the lower single digits for the next quarter because of the continuing impact of lost production from pandemic-related disruptions in Vietnam where an average 18,000 new cases were recorded in the last seven days.
Friend said Nike will continue to watch the Omicron variant to see what impacts it may bring to production.
Demand for Nike’s goods continues to outpace supply. The previous quarter, Nike reported a 10-week delay in production because of a lockdown in Vietnam and said it expected flat revenue growth for the November quarter.
Nike posted a revenue of $11.4 billion in the quarter ending Nov. 30, up 1 percent from the same period a year earlier. Analysts expected revenue of $11.2 billion.
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Maersk agrees US$3.6 billion deal to buy LF Logistics
Container shipping giant Maersk on Wednesday agreed to buy Hong Kong-based LF Logistics for $3.6 billion in an all-cash deal, as it seeks to expand beyond its core ocean freight business.
The deal is one of the group’s largest takeovers to date and follows a series of acquisitions including e-commerce firms, a freight forwarder specialising in air freight and its smaller rival Hamburg Sud.
“The acquisition will further strengthen Maersk’s capabilities as an integrated container logistics company, offering global end-to-end supply chain solutions to its customers,” the company said in a statement.
Maersk will buy LF Logistics from controlling shareholder Li & Fung, a Hong Kong-based supply chain manager, and from Singapore state investor Temasek which bought 22 percent of the company in 2019. The deal is expected to close in 2022.
With a network of 223 warehouses and around 10,000 employees in 14 Asian countries, LF Logistics provides land-based logistic services such as warehousing and trucking to over 250 global customers.
The company had revenue of $1.3 billion last year. Maersk said it expects to more than double the revenue and operating profit at the company by 2026.
Record high container freight rates stemming from the impact of the pandemic have boosted big shipping companies and prompted deal-making by Maersk and its rivals, including CMA CGM and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).
With chaotic conditions in the global supply chain, big companies have been willing to pay a premium for more reliable and integrated freight solutions.
The price implies that the valuation of LF Logistics has more than doubled since the Temasek deal valued the company at nearly $1.4 billion two years ago.
French billionaire Vincent Bollore received a 5.7 billion-euro ($6.43 billion) offer from MSC for his African logistics assets, his company Bollore SE said on Monday.
This month, French rival CMA CGM accelerated its push into warehouses and end-to-end logistics by agreeing a $3 billion deal to buy assets from US technology group Ingram Micro. In November, it bought a container terminal in Los Angeles for around $2 billion.
Since breaking up its conglomerate in 2016, including selling its oil and gas business, Maersk has transformed into an integrated logistics company.
Although container shipping accounted for 73 percent of its revenue last year, Maersk aims to offer customers such as Walmart and Nike shipment of goods from factory to store, even offering last-mile delivery to end-customers.
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Singtel and Ericsson achieve Southeast Asia fastest download speeds on 5G SA NR-DC
Singtel and Ericsson have made a technology breakthrough in 5G standalone (SA) New Radio-Dual Connectivity (NR-DC), becoming the first in Southeast Asia to reach download speeds of 5.4Gbps by aggregating Singtel’s spectrum holdings across mid-band spectrum 3.5GHz and 28GHz mmWave. This milestone was achieved in a demo with Ericsson’s 5G radio access network products and solutions and dual-mode 5G Core network solutions, as well as a test device from Qualcomm Technologies powered by its Snapdragon X65 5G Modem-RF System.
5G SA NR-DC technology, which combines mid-band and mmWave frequencies, further enhances Singtel’s 5G SA speed and capacity to enable high-performance and latency-sensitive applications, and stimulate innovative new use cases across business, industry and consumer ecosystems. Applications can range from cloud gaming, immersive media, AR, VR, XR to autonomous vehicles or robotic control. This new development will push the boundaries of 5G technology, combining different frequency bands across the networks, to fully utilise Singtel’s 5G assets for an enhanced user experience.
Mark Chong, Singtel’s group chief technology officer, said, “This 5G breakthrough demonstrates our commitment to continually innovate and maximise the potential of what this developing technology can deliver. The increased speeds will help pave the way for many new applications as we look to drive transformative benefits for consumers and businesses.”
As one of the first 5G SA networks deployed globally, the future implementation of 5G SA dual connectivity in Singapore will help accelerate the adoption of 5G for both consumers and enterprises, create new business opportunities, strengthen the local 5G ecosystem, as well as drive the future-readiness of Singtel’s network. This achievement closely follows the latest win at the Asia Communications Award, where Singtel and Ericsson were jointly recognised for 5G deployment in Singapore.
Martin Wiktorin, head of Ericsson Singapore, Brunei and Philippines, said, “At Ericsson, we have already deployed over 100 live 5G networks worldwide, building a strategy around multi-layer networks from low, mid-band to high-band 5G. In Singapore, we are constantly driving technology innovations together with Singtel. As 5G frontrunners, we strive to expand the potential of limitless connectivity, and further enhance digital transformation to benefit industries, consumers and societies.”
his new 5G technology breakthrough builds on the strong collaboration between Ericsson and Singtel over the past 30 years as technology front runners in Singapore. Past milestones include achieving Singapore’s fastest 5G speeds of 3.2Gbps at Singtel’s unmanned pop-up retail store UNBOXED as well as Singtel’s GENIE, the world’s first portable 5G-in-a-box platform powered by Ericsson to enable enterprises to experience 5G’s capabilities and trial use cases in their own premises.
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Goodyear Introduces ElectricDrive GT EV First Tyres For Tesla Model Y
Goodyear has introduced a new set of tires called the ElectricDrive GT which is the first replacement tires for the North American market, designed specifically for EVs particularly for the Model Y. The ElectricDrive GT is a high-performance, all-season tire which has been designed to last long and provide ride quality that one expects with EVs.
Goodyear is one of the oldest tire companies in the world founded in 1898 just 12 years after the first automobile was invented. So it does know a lot about tires and it is appropriate that it is one of the first to come up with replacement tires for EVs which are heavier, faster, and have instant torque. This is a huge difference from cars based on the internal combustion engine.
According to Goodyear, this is the first replacement tire of its kind of EVs in the North American market by a US-based manufacturer.
“Products that anticipate the mobility needs of consumers are central to Goodyear’s focus on innovation excellence. Electric vehicles present a very specific set of requirements for load, torque, noise, range, rolling resistance, and overall performance. We’re proud to deliver leading technologies to serve the evolving EV landscape,” said David Reese, Vice President, product development, Goodyear Americas.
The tires leverage Goodyear’s sound-comfort technology which actively rides as a bull in sound batterie to reduce road noise for passengers. The tyre also gets an asymmetric tread pattern and has a specialized tread compound that provides enhanced traction despite the terrain and the driving conditions.
It also gets a 64,374 km tread life and has a limited warranty with a W speed rating of 270 kmph which is basically not achieved by any car outside of the Bugatti Chiron or the McLaren F1. Goodyear states that the ElectricDrive GT will come only in the 255/45R19 104W XL, but it will expand the product line in 2022.
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Reliance Jio gains wireless subscribers contrary to rival operators
According to data issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), total wireless subscribers reached 1,166.30 million at the end of October 2021, with the urban areas accounting for 637.44 million and rural areas totaling 528.86 million.
As on 31 October, 2021, private access service providers held 89.99% market share of wireless subscribers, with the two PSU access service providers, namely BSNL and MTNL possessing a 10.01% market share.
Reliance Jio had the largest market share at 36.58%, followed by Airtel at 30.35% and Vodafone at 23.07%.
Reliance Jio reportedly added 1.7 million subscribers in October, bringing its subscriber base to 426.59 million. Airtel, however, has a subscriber base of 353.97 million after shedding some 0.48 million in the same month. Vodafone’s subscriber base also dropped, totalling 269.02 million after losing 0.96 million subscribers.
Data published by TRAI previously revealed that Reliance Jio has the highest average data download speed of 24.1 MB/s among 4G service providers in India.
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Indian online grocer Zepto secures $100 million investment
Indian on-demand grocery-delivery service, Zepto, has bagged US$100 million during its Series-C funding, taking its value to US$570 million within five months of its launch.
Led by Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund, the round included investors Nexus, Breyer Capital, Global Founders Capital and Glade Brook, among others. The Series-C funding follows Zepto’s earlier funding round in which it received $60 million valuing the business at $225 million.
Zepto was founded by two 19-year-old entrepreneurs, Kaivalya Vohra and Aadit Palicha, who left Stanford last year to develop a solution for instant grocery delivery through a network of dark stores. The 10-minute grocery delivery service is currently available across metropolitan cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon, Bengaluru, and Chennai, with Pune and Kolkata to come.
“Their attention to detail on the logistics experience is unparalleled and this has enabled them to scale to most major metros in just five months,” said Anu Hariharan, Partner at Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund. “Simply put, we’re confident Zepto will win in this space over the long-term.”
Zepto will compete directly with local delivery giants, Swiggy and BlinkIt, who have also forayed into the instant grocery delivery sector.
According to Y Combinator, Zepto’s month–on–month buyer retention rate is 65 per cent. The company has built a network of micro-warehouses, each of which can do more than 2500 orders a day, and are now adding 100,000 new customers every week.
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Australia’s love affair with boxed wine endures
Boxed wine is one of Australia’s most extraordinary contributions to the wine industry, also known as cardboardeaux, bag-in-box (BiB), or more commonly.
Australian winemaker Thomas Angove patented the design for a one-gallon polyethylene bladder in a cardboard box in 1965, inspired by the ancient method of storing wine in goat skins. The first model required drinkers to cut a corner of the plastic bag and reseal it with a special category peg (used to transport battery acid).
Once a tap was designed in the 1970s goon climbed quickly to make up about 50% of wine sales in Australia. In the days when restaurants sold “house wine”, goon was known for being economical above anything else, and convenient, associated more with families on a budget and people on low incomes.
Wine in the ‘70s was still perceived as for special occasions and casks may have helped change that. Thirty years later, between 2004-2014, there was a 30% drop in cask sales but a 40% increase in bottled wine during the same decade. As domestic sales had been dropping, the cask concept (and its contents) was also being exported.
Goon has come a long way from its origins and reputation. The visual appeal of the box and the bag has evolved, along with the narrative the wine label communicates about history, geography, identity.
As the environmental benefits of wine in a box have become more important to new consumers, the quality of its contents has also improved. Jilly Wine Company’s Chateau Cardboard Red at $71 for 3 liters, is a long way from the one-gallon packs of table white, table red, port, sweet sherry, and muscat launched in 1965.
There are good reasons why Australians love goon, and there are strong reasons for the love to grow.
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Crypto Pi app disappears from Google Play Store
Cryptocurrency mining app Pi Network has disappeared from Google Play Store for Android devices, making investors concerned about the future of the project.
“I cannot download the app. I am worried all my mining efforts up until now would be thrown away,” said Le Tu in the southern province of Dong Nai.
The Pi Network app, the main tool for users to “mine” the cryptocurrency by checking in every day, “is currently going through a regular review cycle and is unavailable to download through Google Play Store,” the developers of the coin said on their website.
“We expect to be back up on the Play Store soon,” they noted, adding users could manually download the app via a link.
There seems to be no issue with the app on App Store for Apple devices.
Bang, admin of a group of Pi users, also known as Pioneers, speculated that the project is set to transition to the main phase and was therefore temporarily removed from Google Play.
The app ranked seventh among downloads in Vietnam on Google Play Store last month.
Pi has become a controversial cryptocurrency as the developers allow anyone to own it by tapping on their smartphone once every day without any investment or much details about the development phase.
Some experts have said the project lack transparency and called on people to be careful to avoid being scammed.
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T-Mobile’s Scam Shield service has blocked 21 billion scam calls in 2021
T-Mobile released its 2021 Scams and Robocalls report, and it says that its Scam Shield service managed to block 21 billion scam calls, which translates to 700 calls identified or blocked every second. The gathered data by T-Mobile shows an over 116% increase in scam call attempts from 2020.
According to the T-Mobile scam call report, the most frequent scam was related to fake vehicle warranties, which accounted for 51% of all the call scams. In other popular scams, the scammers were posing as Social Security office workers (up to 10%) and wireless providers (up to 9%). Scammers also pretended to be employees of car insurance companies (6%) or package delivery companies (4%). There were also cases in which scammers posed as health insurance or health providers, the IRS, or workers from credit card companies.
In its scam call observation, T-Mobile observed that the scammers were working mostly from Monday to Friday, and on the weekends, they didn’t work as hard. It seems that the scammers enjoy some time for themselves on the holidays. This year, Easter (April 4) had the lowest scam attempts of the year. T-Mobile also reported that starting on December 23, the number of call scams began to decline.
Another piece of information that T-Mobile reports in its scam call report is that scammers are more likely to target some areas of the United States more than others. Scammers favored Texas, Florida, Arizona, and Georgia. And the most targeted area codes were in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
In the summer of 2020, T-Mobile released its Scam Shield service. The goal of the Scam Shield was to protect all of T-Mobile’s customers from scam call attacks for free. By using AI to analyze call behavior, T-Mobile constantly improves the protection of its network against scam call attacks.
One of the features that Scam Shield has is scam detection. If Scam Shield detects a scam threat, the customer will be notified immediately. The Scam Shield service gives you the ability to turn off scam calls via Scam Block. Your phone will not even ring if Scam Block is enabled and Scam Shield detects a potential scam call. For more information about T-Mobile’s Scam Shield, visit T-Mobile’s website.