08/01/2014 Asia Business Report

them. Now on BBC News, all the latest business news live from

Singapore. We talk to the head of Sony at the Las Vegas Consumer

Electronics Show. You are stephen macro 2014, which will be the best

and worst performers. We start off with technology and from televisions

that bend and smart socks that track data from your daily jog, some of

the gadgets on display at an international tech exhibition

exhibition in Las Vegas. It is called the Consumer Electronics

Show. This is where many of Asia's biggest electronics names have been

gathering. Our correspondent is there and spoke with the Sony

president to get an update on the electronic giant's developments. A

tabletop screen showing live television, my calendar, my notes

all on the kitchen table. It is a concept at the moment, but in Las

Vegas, Sony has been unveiling a range of new products. I've been

talking to the boss about where the technology is going. You have

launched something that is quite interesting? I am wearing the

wristband version. Inside the wristband, is what we call the core.

It fits into the wristband. This logs all of your activities, whether

walking, in the car, on the bicycle, all the physical activities you do.

It allows you to log photos you have taken, music you listen to. It takes

in your entire day. The big battle recently has been between the game

consoles, the Sony PS4 has been seen seen as a great gaming box but the

Xbox is leading for home entertainment? We were able to sell

4.2 million units which is a very high number. Are you ready to call

victory in the battle against Xbox? I have always seen the console

business as a five to ten year propostion. How important is

streaming video into the home going to be? Are you a big player? At

Sony, we are one of the top five providers of screened video content

into homes in the United States. The PS3 is the number one device for

Netflix viewers over televisions, and PCs, we have a big presence here

into US market and elsewhere as well. You had disappointment a few

months back with the unexpected profit warning, that must have been

a big disappointment? If you look at it from a quarterly perspective, it

was a disappointment, again, one quarter does not make the entire

business. Every quarter matters, it is making sure we have the best

product, that we do it the most efficient way, there are some things

we can not control like the exchange rates. We need to make sure that

business is robust enough to absorb fluctuations in exchange rates. You

will have to take some hard decisions eventually? If you talk

about restructuring, we have undertaken that already many times.

Some businesses are growing, those areas will have more employees.

Other businesses where are we are shrinking, we may have to do

restructuring. It is not something we suddenly decide to do one day.

That was the president of Sony. For more on the cool gadgetry from the

consumer electronics show, log on to the BBC website. Other business

news, US officials announced that JP Morgan Chase would pay $1.7 billion

for its role in the massive fraud carried out by Bernie Madoff. The

country 's biggest bank agreed to the settlement because it failed to

warn federal authorities about his schemes. JP Morgan Chase served as

his bank for two decades before he was arrested in 2008. The

International monetary fund is to raise its forecast for global

growth. The managing director said the revision would come in the next

three weeks but did not elaborate. In October it lowered its growth

forecast, saying the global economy would remain in low gear. It reduced

its growth forecast for 2014 to 3.6%. The simple phone has come a

long way since it was first invented in the 1800s, instead of being used

just for calls, they are now sources of information, social network and

doing business. We spoke with an expert about the rise of mobile

commerce in Asia. The Asia area is the first -- fastest growing area

for global combos in the world. That is largely driven by the smart phone

adoption across the region. It is being led by China, India and some

of the biggest population countries. It is the arrival of the smart phone

driving a lot of that mobile, as that we see. You talk about country

such as China and India, the fact remains that in countries like

these, smart phones are still very expensive, unlike the Western

economies, the phone service providers do not subsidise them.

Could that hurt future growth? That is true for certain -- certain

markets. It depends what sectors you look at, did some research and

looked at urban individuals in India. People over 18 who have a

bank account and have a mobile phone. You get high smart phone

penetration in that sector. It is 90%. These are the people that will

be driving a lot of the transactions. If you talk about

India in general, smart phone penetration is 20%. In the short

term, it is not about all of India adopting smart phones, it is about

people who drive transactions which becomes your growing middle class,

driving these transactions. What about the security concerns, you

store it a lot of your sensitive financial information on your mobile

phone and use that to make payments to another mobile phone or another

Alec Tronic device. How safe is that? The security is not as

vulnerable as one might think. There has been some very good

technological advancements. If you look at mobile banking, 3-D secure,

two weight checks, for loading up your phone is to the mobile wallet,

there is something called trusted service management. These are all

very good technologies. It is about influencing and really getting the

consumer to believe it is not as risky as he or she may think. For

decades, China's economic growth has depended on trading physical

products. To do this it has had to import large amounts of natural

resources to feed factories, leading China to become one of the most

powerful players in the global commodities market.

I spoke with a commodities analyst at Barclays and I asked her whether

the South Sudan conflict was affecting oil prices in China's oil

supply. The conflict in South Sudan is a reflection of similar types of

geopolitical conflicts around the world. This is putting eight law

under prices even though production is rising rapidly in North America.

We see in South Sudan and see Dan account for two or 3% of Chinese

imports. A significant portion of the Chinese oil supply. We think oil

prices are being caught between these geopolitical conflicts that

put a floor under prices and higher supply elsewhere. For China, they

are looking here to terms of energy security. We will see them and best

in more African nations? China has been doing a lot of that. It has

invested a overseas. They will seek to diversified, and best in in

stable countries and regions and stable countries and regions. It

will look to hook up more supply from Russia in the future. China is

definitely going to go out and diversified to places. As China also

behind the rise in copper prices recently? The short-term rally we

saw in recent weeks was driven by short-covering. The Chinese market

was relatively tight. They have been importing more and more copper in

2014. Because China has a very strong demand things like copper

wiring and China needs to import copper to turn it into financing. We

do see copper prices in the near to recent term? Supply is driving

copper prices more than Chinese demand. We forecast prices to come

off $700. Most Asian stocks are trading higher in Asian trade. After

there was a slump over the New year. Four US Air Force crew members were

killed when their