30/04/2014 Asia Business Report

Leeds. Anne Maguire was due to retire, after 40 years at Corpus

Christi Catholic College. Now, it is time for Asia Business Report.

Twitter shares plunge as it struggles to lure new users and

excite current ones with new products. And, tropical paradise. We

visit a beach resort in Indonesia to find out if this man has one of

Asia's coolest jobs. Welcome to Asia Business Report. We

start with the social media giant Twitter. They have disappointed

again with their second earnings report since going public last year.

Monthly active users hit 255 million in the first quarter, but membership

growth has slowed to 25%. Revenue more than doubled to 250 million,

thanks to a sharp rise in income from advertising, but that did not

stop shares falling nearly 10% in after hours straight. We have been

speaking to the chief executive, and we explain why investors are so

worried. Many people, when they look at young social media companies,

they are looking for outsized growth, to justify the fact that

these companies have yet to make a profit. Twitter is still making a

net loss, even though revenue has doubled. The challenge for the CEO

is to ensure investors and analysts that the company is working very

hard to continue to keep the growth rate up. The problem you have is

that right now, if you look at the reaction amongst the share price,

clearly, investors are not convinced that the company at this point is

not doing enough to continue to grow with you `` its user base. It added

14 million users over the past year, but the problem is that the

breakneck pace we have seen in the past is starting to slowdown. As you

say, they haven't been reassuring enough for investors and analysts.

What is it doing to try to reassure them, advertisers as well, that they

will be able to add more users? On the conference call, Dick Costello

did look a bit about that, trying to dissuade some of the concerns people

had. They are pointing to events like the Oscars, the Super Bowl, big

events, and their ability to attract money to those. This was an

opportunity going forward, they said, to get not just too big

events, but other TV shows. Moments when people like to share an

experience. That would be an opportunity to make more money going

forward. If you look at Twitter, looking at how the revenue has

doubled, the trouble has not been making money, the problem has been

to continue to add the people to its service so they can continue to sell

advertising. That is what the company has been focused on trying

to increase, new products, today they rolled out a new appearance,

which resemble something a bit more like Facebook, but will it be

enough? Continuing with corporate earnings, and eBay has said it is

repatriating almost 9 billion of its cash held overseas back to the US.

The firm said that the move, which will see it paying taxes of $3

billion on the cash, would help it access funds for any potential

acquisitions in the country. Any firms have kept some of their cash

overseas, and it is widely seen as a way to avoid higher US tax rates.

Lawyers for Apple have accused Samsung of copying key features of

its iPhone and iPad products. A jury in California was told that that is

how the South Korean electronics giant turned itself into a dominant

player in the market. The testimony came in the closing arguments of a

high`stakes patents trial which could cost Samsung $2 billion in

damages. China's biggest bank has beat forecasts with a near 7% rise

to $11.7 billion. They have put it down to steady income from interest.

It is the last of China's before lenders to post positive earnings,

and all have reported better than expected results in the face of

interest`rate reforms. Despite this, shares have fallen an average of 3%

in Hong Kong, despite those positive numbers. New data from Japan shows

that industrial market is growing, recovering from a 2% fall in

February. They reported the first decrease in output, which comes as

the Bank of Japan meets expectations to keep monetary policy steady. It

could affect the central bank's inflation target of 2%. Shinzo Abe

begins a 6`nation tour of Europe today, and he will be visiting

Germany, Britain, Portugal, Spain, France and Belgium, with the aims of

expanding trade ties. It comes hot on the heels of President Obama's

meeting with Shinzo Abe. This was to discuss the Trans`Pacific

Partnership, but there was little progress. It is more of a bilateral

thing, whereas in the US, the demand for cars is very low, and Japanese

carmaker already produce a lot of cars in the US. The US has very

little to offer to Japan and a TPP. How much is president Shinzo Abe

counting on trade deals? We have seen Abenomics, is policy to boost

growth. How much do trade figures figuring that? TPP is important

because China is not part it, so it gives Japan some kind of edge over

China, and for a couple of things that Shinzo Abe wants to achieve,

the TPP is the foundations. Or example, getting more FDI into the

country, the TPP is important, and also boosting exports, agricultural

exports, for example, that is one target of Abenomics. To get that,

agriculture has to become more competitive. At the moment, it

isn't, because Japan still has several protectionist measures. It

is not competitive, the farm sizes are very small, Japan exports very

little agriculturally. Sun, sand and sea. That is a typical

holiday for tight professionals looking to escape the office. But

for one man, that is where he gets to work, day in and day out. He is

the owner and manager of an Indonesian Beach resort, could it be

one of the coolest jobs? A tropical paradise, a scuba

diver's secret. People come here to escape their jobs, but when calls it

home office. My wife and I own this resort, we have four small

bungalows, and a dive centre, and we try to make sure that the guest have

a wonderful time, a wonderful holiday, with the most fantastic

diving in the world. He and his wife built the resort in 2006, after

having died here on holiday. Is a certified diving instructor, but

these days he only guys for fun. Diving is definitely the main draw

of this island. It is like a hidden paradise of Sulawesi. It is full of

soft corals, very colourful soft coral. How did he pay for this

lifetime of holiday? Before I started this, I had a good job in

the Netherlands, and my wife had a good job here in Indonesia, so we

were just saving a lot of money. I sold everything I had in the

Netherlands, and started this together with my wife. How can you

be sure that it was going to work? I think you can never be sure, but I

was living in the Netherlands, and they always had this dream of

starting my own company somewhere in a nice tropical location. But this

dream location also has its downside. Logistics is not the

easiest, and we had to arrange everything ourselves. There is no

electricity, no facilities. It takes two and a half hours to reach the

closest big city, so if you want to go shopping, you had better make

sure you have everything in one go. But you get to live in a place where

most people have to pay a fortune to get to. Do you think you have a cool

job? What can be better than this? I live in paradise, I enjoy time with

dogs and with the girls. I have three daughters, and I get the time

to read with them, teach them to swim, I don't know anything that is

better than this. Owain's advice to those who want to do what he is

doing is don't be afraid, you may just succeed and have a wonderful

life. That is a cool job! Let's have a

look at the markets. In Asia, they are rising, but not by

much. There is some caution setting in, because the Bank of Japan

monetary policy meeting is coming up, and the Federal Reserve meeting

on interest rates in the US. Markets taking their lead from Wall Street,

where you can see them being boosted by a fairly good corporate earnings.

Thank you for watching. Our top stories: The International

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