February, 2017

• 4 February

  Apple to begin making iPhones in India by April end

  

    Bloomberg Apple Inc. will begin assembling iPhones in India by the end of April, a regional minister says, heightening its focus on the world’s fastest-growing major smartphone market as growth slows elsewhere. The US company has tapped Taiwan’s Wistron Corp. to put together its phones in the tech capital of Bangalore in Karnataka, said Priyank Kharge, the state’s information ...

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• 4 February

  China’s global homebuyers short on cash

    Bloomberg China’s escalating crackdown on capital outflows is sending shudders through property markets around the world. In London, Chinese citizens who clamored to purchase flats at the city’s tallest apartment tower three months ago are now struggling to transfer their down payments. In Silicon Valley, Keller Williams Realty says inquiries from China have slumped since the start of the ...

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• 4 February

  Apple, Microsoft borrow now instead of waiting for tax shift

  

    Bloomberg This year, tax reform could give US companies access to hundreds of billions of dollars they have stashed overseas. Many corporations can’t wait that long. Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. combined sold $27 billion of debt this week to fund their daily operations, repay maturing debt, and buy back shares. Those bond sales might be unnecessary if new ...

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• 4 February

  Growth in US services industries steady

  

    Bloomberg America’s service industries expanded in January at about the same pace as in the previous month, indicating resilience in the biggest part of the economy. The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index was 56.5 last month after December’s 56.6 that matched the highest level since October 2015, the Tempe, Arizona-based group’s data showed Friday. Readings above 50 signal ...

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• 4 February

  Defective air bags found in repaired BMWs, spurring fresh recall

    Bloomberg BMW AG is recalling about 230,000 vehicles in the US after discovering that some may have been fitted with defective Takata Corp. air-bag inflators during repairs, such as after a crash in which the devices deployed. The affected vehicles used air bags manufactured by Petri AG, a German partsmaker bought by Takata in 2000. If those vehicles needed ...

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• 4 February

  Nafta end may hit even movie theater popcorn

  

    Bloomberg As Donald Trump’s administration prepares to renegotiate Nafta, the head of Mexico’s largest movie theater chain is warning that an end to free trade could convince him to buy his popcorn from Argentina instead of the US. Cinepolis de Mexico SA, the world’s fourth-largest cinema chain, buys about $10 million a year of American kernels from farmers in ...

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• 4 February

  Cattle industry concerned by Trump pledge on Nafta

    Bloomberg The largest US cattle trade group said it’s “very concerned” about President Donald Trump’s pledge to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which calls into question whether the industry will continue to enjoy its current level of market access in Mexico and Canada. A shakeup of Nafta now would come as US beef output is forecast to ...

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• 4 February

  Snap future hinges on Google ties

  

    Bloomberg Every year at its annual I/O conference, Google gives away stuff. Last May, the trinkets included a tiny pamphlet with a code that let attendees follow the company on Snapchat. At one point earlier that year, a much bigger alliance was in the works. The companies discussed a feature that would have let a Snapchat user point the ...

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• 4 February

  Apple didn’t make much off those USB wires it made you buy

  

    Bloomberg The timeline of the Apple universe can be measured as BC and AC: That is, before its popular MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops had only USB-C ports, and after, when it became your only choice. The decision to ditch the traditional USB port was announced October 27, and the Apple congregation quickly split into two camps. Some fantasized ...

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• 4 February

  Nintendo promises more smartphone games a year

  

    TOKYO / AP Nintendo Co. President Tatsumi Kimishima said the company is committed to delivering more content for smartphones, noting that the success of “Pokemon Go,” a smartphone augmented-reality game, boosted sales of other Pokemon games and of 3DS machines. That helped Kyoto-based Nintendo, which creates Super Mario games, report a better-than-expected October-December profit of 64.7 billion yen ($569 ...

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