18/10/2016 Asia Business Report

The website. -- lots more as always on our website.

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

Crown's biggest shareholder James Packer says he's worried about his

employees detained in China. And a jump in new subscribers.

Netflix shares rise in after-hours trading.

Good morning and welcome to Asia Business Report, from Singapore,

with me, Mariko Oi. After sharing some 14% on Monday shares in Crown

resorts have started trading with a modest recovery, after the company

confirmed some of its staff has been detained in China. It is controlling

shareholder billionaire James Packer has issued a statement saying he is

deeply concerned for their welfare. Crown has yet to make contact with

them, he says. Earlier I spoke to a chief strategist at is -- the

company that has casino companies in Asia are under investing in their

government relations. I think the pressure will continue because

basically the mainland Chinese government in Beijing really wants

to do everything they can to ensure that the casino gaming industry

remains in check and that they remain in control of it, as it

relates to their citizens and how their citizens travel abroad to

partake in casino gaming activity. So it seems as though the big

question is what kind of activity was the Crown employee executives

involved in, as it relates to possible violations in mainland

Chinese law? If there were violations it will create

interesting dynamics because Crown is an Australian company and

involves probably mostly Australian nationals. It is not the first time

that Chinese authorities detained foreign casino operators. They

arrested some South Korean managers as well. A very worrying time for

family members, but what can these casino operators do in China,

foreign casino operators? Basically the government of China is sending a

message to the entire industry, that for any kind of casino gaming that

exists beyond Macau is there has to be very strong sensitivity towards

what kind of attractions take place between these companies marketing

their services and the citizens of China. I think there are tremendous

implications for Crown resorts because if you even take their

brand-new project, their billion-dollar project that is going

to be coming up in Sydney, the question is if the mainland Chinese

citizens aren't there to be the customers of that project who will

be? What about the impact on the Cowell? -- Mac Cowell? Our view is

that it won't be too heavily impacted via this action. Our view

is that actually in indirect way this is kind of a protective measure

for Macau gaming industry and the mainland Chinese government is

saying the casino operators, we prefer citizens to go to Macau

rather than places like South Korea or Australia and if they do go

abroad widowed want them advertising the citizens in mainland China. In

other news:, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte begins his four-day

visit to China, his first since taking office. He is expected to

discuss deepening economic ties between the countries but has

reported being ruled out talks -- ruling out talks over dispute in the

South China Sea. One of the winners today were shares

of online video streaming firm Netflix which produces popular shows

like Orange is the New Black and House of Cards. They rose by almost

20% in after-hours trading after the company said they added 3.6 million

new subscribers in the last three months. Earlier I spoke to a media

expert who now heads the Asia business for a regional rival to

Netflix, iFlix. He said he wasn't surprised by the latest results. We

aren't so surprised because we see a major revolution happening in

entertainment, the shift from entertainment targeted to the

household to the individual, meaning there's huge growth potential and I

think certainly we are seeing big growth across the region. You say

things are getting better for the industry but there have been many

challenges, which has affected the performance of Netflix over the past

few years. So I these challenges, including the numbers of people

cancelling the service, are they gone? The path to the revolution is

a bit choppy, but the challenge is really do get localised and meet the

local needs. As long as you are addressing local needs you will have

growth. Our main challenge is to meet our growth and rolling out to

the countries where we are getting heavy demand for services from

customers, as well as partners. Staying with US earnings, a big boom

with revenues at IBM to -- declining as the company tries to redefine

itself. Net income for the third quarter of the year fell to $2.85

billion. Cloud computing revenue surged by 44%, giving hope to the

belief that they can shift their focus to more lucrative sectors.

These are is losing its CEO because of San Francisco. He is resigning

after four years leading the company because he said being based on the

west coast has been difficult for his personal life. The former

president of American Express Alfred Kelly will replace him at the end of

the month. After years of a steady rise,

property prices in Singapore have been on somewhat of a rollercoaster

ride lately. Elsewhere in the region, cooling measures have driven

down prices and China's slowdown is also affecting the industry. One

person with a finger on the pulse is the founder of the region's biggest

online poverty portal. We spoke to them about how the economic slowdown

has hit property prices. It depends what side of the fence is hit. If

you are a tenant or prospective buyer you are rubbing your hands

with glee because there are some great opportunities, especially if

you are cash rich. As a tenant you can negotiate up to a 25% drop in

your rental agreement from two years ago and similar for prospective

buyers. On the other side, if you are an owner or in -- investor you

are struggling because less demand, the population isn't growing as

fast, rental prices are coming down, vacancy rates are increasing and on

top of that the real estate developers are struggling because

some of them have made a commitment in the next three to five years to

are of money, buy land, develop it and sell at it at a higher price

than they are getting now. So there is a time duration on the market

that's a pressure point for developers and also for the owners.

Many entrepreneurs experience failure before they taste success

and one of them is on university dropout for New Zealand who had more

than $500 million in debts from two failed companies, but now runs a

thriving business called 90 Seconds. We had a look at his fifth start up

a video production platform based -- which has now expanded to cities

like San Francisco and Sydney. 90 Seconds. Has people all over the

world who can shoot, or do graphics, all professionals, and on the other

side we have brands that are making lots of video content. Normally they

go to production companies and what this company does is let them do it

in the cloud. We have 6000 people across 87 countries, so you can

imagine what that's like. You are looking for a gig, you worried

someone like Manila, Cambodia, London, and suddenly a gig pops up,

it is ready to go. Before now the idea was you build a business, you

hire a bunch of people, you get a price with the customer and you try

to maximise that margin and you have to manage these people, which are

effectively on. In a gig economy you don't own the people who do the

work, they are there on time and you just help them turn their time in

the money. Is it going in the right direction? I have two views. On one

side, as someone building a platform, I can see the opportunity

to do this and make life for everybody, but it isn't as simple as

coming in, building a technology platform, getting the band on it. By

no means. This is disrupting people's income flow and we do that

it is very sensitive, whether they will rent a house or buy a house,

where they might live, what they might spend. Our job is knowing how

to make this work for everybody and it is something we have to keep

asking and keep solving as we go along, make a platform that works

for both sides of the market. We have got to get things like pricing

and quality and the amount of job flow right, because we are trying to

look after all of these people, these freelancers and small

businesses, and help them build their careers, and this is something

we have to work on. How did make sure you get the income levels to

the level they need to be to support everybody? That's one of the

challenges but that's why we are in this game and that's what technology

has to Do. That's it for this edition of

Asia Business Report. Sport Today is coming up next.

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