October, 2019

• 5 October

  Another RBI rate cut is not going to help India

  

  It’s almost universally expected in India that the central bank’s monetary policy committee will lower interest rates this week. Many expect it to keep cutting until the policy rate hits 5% by the end of the year; it was 6% in June, and the committee cut it by an unexpected 0.35 percentage points in its last meeting to bring it ...

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• 5 October

  Tesco boss is leaving before his sell-by date

  

  In the five years since Tesco Plc was plunged into the biggest crisis in its history, Dave Lewis, its chief executive officer, has executed an (almost) textbook turnaround of Britain’s biggest retailer. He’s now decided that his job is done and he will hand over the reins next year to Ken Murphy of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. “Drastic Dave” — ...

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• 5 October

  Sony’s PlayStation Now needs more than a price cut

  

  Sony Corp. has halved the price of its PlayStation Now subscription games service. Competition from console rival Nintendo Co. as well as new offerings from Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc. are the obvious reasons. In addition, though, PlayStation Now failed to live up to its potential. At $19.99 per month, the product was way overpriced. After four years, Sony ...

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• 5 October

  Microsoft is back in the phone game

  

  Bloomberg Now that Microsoft has restored some of its former glory, the company is going for an even more unlikely comeback: rewriting the history of its much-maligned phone business. Three years after retreating from the smartphone business, Microsoft took the wraps off the Surface Duo, a dual-screened handheld computing device coming in time for Christmas 2020. Yes, it makes phone ...

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• 5 October

  British firm building flying taxis’ hub in Singapore

  

  Bloomberg A British company says it’s building the world’s first “vertiport” for electric aircraft in Singapore, an early step towards a global network for flying taxis. Essex-based Skyports Ltd plans to show off the vertical take-off and landing station at Marina Bay during the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress from October 21-25. Germany’s Volocopter GmbH will bring along its electric ...

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• 5 October

  Huawei phones lose bootleg access to Google apps

  

  Bloomberg One of Huawei Technologies Co’s biggest trade war headaches has just gotten worse, as an unofficial workaround to the Trump administration ban on using Google apps and services has been quashed. Security researcher John Wu published an illuminating post that explained how users of Huawei’s Mate 30 Pro were able to manually download and install Google apps, despite a ...

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• 5 October

  Ethiopian Air nears deal to order Airbus A220 planes

  

  Bloomberg Ethiopian Airlines Group is close to agreeing a deal with Airbus SE for as many as 20 narrow-body A220 planes worth more than $1.6 billion, reviving an earlier plan after a spell using larger Boeing Co 737s. Africa’s biggest and most consistently profitable carrier is in late-stage talks about the purchase of the 100-seater aircraft, which should be completed ...

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• 5 October

  Indonesia online mall valued at $2.5b after landing investment

  

  Bloomberg PT Bukalapak.com raised capital from investors including Indonesian media giant Emtek and South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group Co, a round of funding that valued the online marketplace at more than $2.5 billion. The Jakarta-based startup, which last month said it would cut about 10 percent of its workforce to focus on profitability, announced the transaction but wouldn’t provide more ...

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• 5 October

  United Airlines doles out perks to plug 10-year gap of 10,000 pilots

  

  Bloomberg United Airlines Holdings Inc is escalating efforts to recruit pilots with new financial perks and faster career advancement as the carrier faces the retirement of almost half its aviators over the next decade. The programme, dubbed Aviate, is designed to attract more staff for regional airlines that fly for United, which will then look to field a large portion ...

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• 5 October

  France hits out at Dutch in Air France-KLM feud

  Bloomberg The Netherlands has created an imbalance in the governance of Air France-KLM, a French government representative said, signalling a power struggle between the carrier’s two biggest shareholders remains unresolved. The Dutch government needs to treat the airline like a normal listed company and choose between holding a stake in the group or in the KLM unit, Martin Vial, head ...

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