28/10/2015 BBC Business Live

This is Business Live from BBC News with Sally Bundock and Alice Baxter.

The enduring demand for the iPhone helps the technology giant defy it's

Live from London, that's our top story on Wednesday 28th October.

Apple's success story has been written by record demand in China -

Also in the programme - where are the best places

We'll tell you what the World Bank thinks - and some

And it's a bumper day for corporate news and European trading is

underway. We will tell you all you need to know, and the winners and

losers. And we'll be getting the

inside track on a girl's best friend - diamonds -

from the chief executive of the Is the slowdown in China taking

the sparkle out of the industry? Philippe Mellier will join us

in the studio. Today we want to know do you need to

have the latest gadget - How often do you update

your smartphone or tablet? Let us know.

Just use the hashtag BBCBizLive. A packed agenda today, let's get

cracking. The world's largest tech giant is

claiming its most successful year ever, after posting encouraging

fourth quarter numbers. The company's revenue reached $51.5

billion for the three months to September,

up more than 20% It meant the company made a profit

of over 11 billion dollars. It's thanks largely to strong iPhone

sales - the firm sold more than 48 million

of them in the last three months. And despite slowing economic growth

in China, sales there have nearly doubled to over 12.5

billion dollars - that's nearly I am joined by a technical analyst.

Apple claiming 2015 to be its most successful year ever recorded,

income of 11.1 billion US dollars. Incredible year in total, generating

$234 billion in revenue over the last 12 months. The increase last

year was more than the total revenue of 19 companies in the Fortune 500,

showing the sheer scale of the Apple business at the moment. It's really

about the iPhone. At its heart Apple remains a device manufacturer. It's

a bit unfair but you could call it the iPhone company, the iPhone

accounts for two thirds of its revenue. IPhone sales, selling more

than 48 million in the last three months. Sales of the iPad are

flagging. Yes, but it's a much less important product. The iPhone is

what's the growth. But the iPad will not replace the iPhone in our hearts

any time soon. Sales were down, so the company is hoping the new iPad

professional launching next month will reinvigorate sales. Right now,

I think we are swapping tablets for larger smartphones. Another small

but high profile section of the business, we don't know how many

Apple watches were sold in the quarter. In the raft of numbers,

according to the Chief Executive, as much as 30% of iPhone buyers are

Google android converts. The highest ever conversion rate. That's very

important, the one question is, I will be iPhone business develop,

with the iPhone seven coming out next year. -- how will the iPhone.

Asking about China. We often feel Apple is quite US centric, but 62%

of revenues generated outside the US with China accounting for a huge

chunk of that despite concerns about the slowdown. It doesn't seem to

have affected Apple. Sales of the iPhone up 120% year-on-year with

overall sales doubling year-on-year, and they are opening more Apple

stores. China market is looking very strong. Sales in China almost double

what they took last year. Thank you for your analysis. Apple shares went

up in half an hour's trade. Normally they go down. Not this time.

And sticking with the tech theme - Twitter disappointed investors with

Its revenues for the third quarter rose, but less than expected

and the number of active users only grew by 3 million since June.

This is Twitter's first earnings report with founder Jack Dorsey back

at the helm as its permanent chief executive.

Twitter shares lost as much as 11 percent in after market trading.

China's online retailing giant AliBaba also reported its results

The firm posted record revenues of almost $3.5 billion

thanks to strong sales on mobile devices.

The latest results pushed up its shares,

Also numbers out from japanese carrier All Nippon Airways-six-month

net profits soared 51 percent thanks to a big jump in its international

business, strong inbound tourism and falling oil prices.

ANA Holdings, the parent company of the airline said its profit

in the April-September period was $448 million, while revenue rose

Just to take you to the business live page, to flag up a few stories

catching our eye. Volkswagen making lots of headlines. Registering its

first quarterly loss in about 15 years. This is in reaction to the

rigging of diesel emissions tests. The first quarterly deficit in 15

years. Operating loss of just under 3.5 billion euros. That was walks

like a's announcement about 15 minutes ago. Offering a pre-tax loss

of around 2.5 billion euros. What's more on this, talking about that

diesel scandal, as you mentioned, and then going down as well. We can

see news from Barclays, giving their bosses a bumper pay package, making

headlines again. Barclays will have a new Chief Executive of the

Barclays group. A former chief executive at JP Morgan. Details on

his pay deal. Results coming from Nintendo. We can go to Singapore.

Sales are up but operating profit is not so good. Yes, we are seeing

mixed results from the video gaming giant. Strong sales of its new super

Mario game drove its revenue up nearly 20%. But net profit fell by

nearly the same amount and was lower than market expectations. These

earnings reflected the bumpy ride Nintendo has been on this year. In

July the company lost its pioneering Chief Executive to cancer. He was

leading the push for Nintendo to start making games for smartphones.

That has hurt Nintendo in the past, the decision to ignore mobile

devices and focus on gaming consoles. The company said little

about its future in smartphone games today, but they confirmed a gaming

app was scheduled to be released. Nintendo's numbers out, and it's a

busy day for corporate news with Japan closing up by 0.67%. Hong Kong

and Shanghai had a bad day. The stocks listed in Hong Kong for

China, their biggest drop in a month. It's predicted Wall Street

will be given a boost, given the news we had from Apple after the

closing bell last night, and it could give a real boost to Wall

Street when they open later. In Europe, we have mentioned

Volkswagen, Barclays confirming a new boss taking over. We had numbers

from Lloyds, BT and EE merging. As well as drinks giants merging. These

markets are fairly flat. And the Federal reserve has its meeting

today, its announcement of what interest rates will be. European and

Asian markets are treading water in many ways ahead of news from the US

Federal reserve. With more from the US. The central Bank of America

wraps up its annual meeting with a statement at 2pm Eastern time. Few

are expecting interest rates to go up, and it could be December, if not

next year, before we get any move. Hilton worldwide reported its

third-quarter earnings. The hotels have benefited from the US economic

recovery. Rivals, Starwood hotels, making most of its money outside

America, the strong dollar might be a drag for them. The results, a day

after reports that at least three big Chinese companies are vying to

buy the hotel chain. Don't forget to check out the make-up of Oreo

cookies, as well as PayPal also reporting this Wednesday. Plenty of

people reporting. Richard Dunbar, investment director at Aberdeen

Asset Management is with us. A flurry of earnings. What has caught

your eye. We are trying to see the aggregate, particularly of the US

earnings, halfway through the third-quarter earnings results, a

little bit better than expected, albeit expectations that had been

downgraded. We are watching the banks closely to see what happens

there. The tech companies are being watched closely. Some are good and

bad. Microsoft and Google have been good, Twitter and others, less good.

Same themes running through Europe and Asia. Trying to get a feel for

what the corporate sector is thinking about what's going on

throughout the world and what we have been talking about in the last

few weeks and months. How do you think they are interpreting this,

and are you with the majority expecting no news today? I think

everybody expects no news today. The debate is whether we get the news in

December or whether it is next year. The investors in the market, the

consensus is that any rate rises in the US will be pushed into next

year. Is that too late? She's reflecting a view on a very strong

US economy, but also a view on a slightly weaker global economy. I

think she's balancing those factors. If she was purely making the

decision on the US, she would perhaps put interest rates up

today, but she's taking a wider view, as the Fed is normally done.

On the flurry of earnings, beverage firms will be in focus because

Heineken reported strong sales growth in America and Europe. Sab

Miller is not doing so well. These companies are focused on where they

are doing business. Tech three Mac is focused on the e-mail urges.

Mergers and acquisitions has been a huge element in the last three

months. With Sab Miller and Inbev, they have

more time to grapple with that merger. The original 5pm deadline

today has been extended until 5pm on the 4th of November, more time to

nail down at megamerger. Still to come, a real gem, we will be talking

all things diamonds with a leader in the industry, the Chief Executive of

De Beers in the studio. First we moved to Lloyds, Europe's second

biggest bank by market value, and it has taken another 5.5 million pound

charge. It takes its total bill to about ?13.9 billion, more than

double any other bank. -- another ?5.5 billion charge. This is the

second largest bank in the UK and three of them are reporting this

week. Three of the top four. It's an interesting time to look at what is

happening in the underlying economy cars banks are a good pre-emptive

reflection of that in terms of the lending they are doing and therefore

the underlying profits. It's not looking too bad for Lloyds. We had

disappointing GDP figures from the UK yesterday, but the underlying

growth of the economy is not too bad. What Lloyds had content with

was the fact it had to put more aside by far than any other bank to

deal with this PPI mis-selling. ?13.9 billion. But the total amount

put aside was ?28 billion. It's shouldering quite a bit of the

burden. The regulatory environment is a bit clearer now. The regulation

of investment and retail banking within the bank, and the amount of

capital a bank has to put aside. In the coming months we might see the

ability to draw a line under the PPI scandal, and we might see a better

reflection of how banking will fare in the future. The regulators hope

it will be a lot more boring. Tell us about BT and EE. They are getting

the thumbs up regarding their tie-up.

It is worth saying BT has about 10 million customer, over 24 million

for EE, they are operating in different parts of the market.

Clearly the Competition and Markets Authority didn't think that

broadband and mobile were going to converge to the degree it caused a

competition problem, so it will be interesting and a big tie up. I

forgot to tell you what happened with Lloyds. It has gone with the

market. Quickly flag up this story trending on the BBC page, a quote

from the BT chief executive, saying we are very pleased it has been

The enduring demand for the iPhone helps the technology

giant defy its sceptics with blockbuster results - with an extra

And now let's get the inside track on the very sparkly

subject of diamonds - with De Beers CEO Philippe Mellier.

Founded in 1888, the De Beers group is a driving force in the diamond

industry with activities in exploration, mining, retail, trading

They're the largest supplier of diamonds onto

the global market in the world by value and responsible for about 35%

The company operates in 28 countries with mines in Botswana, Namibia,

But all that glitters is not gold - or diamonds.

Production fell 27% year on year to September and sales have fallen

Philippe Mellier, chief executive of De Beers Group is here.

Welcome. Thank you. I just want to take this back, because you joined

De Beers as CEO five years ago, prior to that, looking through your

CV you were a cars man, what attracted you to diamondses and what

attracted diamonds to you? And train, also, I was selling trains. I

was head hunted by the family at that time. They were looking for

somebody without any diamond knowledge, because all the CEOs

before me were coming from debeer, mostly South African and we are

living in an era where De Beers was very strong, was the only player in

the world of diamonds. Now, we are only 35% of the market, we are the

leader, and we are opening the company to competition. Not only

from our competitors from Russia and elsewhere but competition from other

luxury goods. It was important to position the company and to do a

little bit of a rebirth of company for the future, so that we can be

the leader for the next 100 years. Was it a steep learning curve for

you? Oh yes it was. I could bring some management skills coming from

a, having run big global companies before, I was pretty aware of

Government relations which is very important, because I have a

government on my board, but I didn't know diamonds. My wife knew quite a

bit about it! I had to learn, and I think today I am OK. I want to ask

you about some of the initiatives you have brought in. One that

interests me, the mine to demand ethos, talk me through that It is

very important. It's a luxury product. We mine to deMonday and,

and this is something -- demind, it is something we thought could be

possible but in the mining world we have huge investment it is difficult

to adapt. Since I arrived we have put in place in the mine, that is

very technical ways of scaling down the production when there is, the

demand is softening, we have what we call tailing plants we are can

process material that has been mined before. We can switch them on or

off. We have our own 30% flexibility in mines today. We can cope with any

demand. That is flexibility, that is key to success now with, you know,

the modty markets in the state they are in, many -- commodity. Many

competitors in mining, they are battling and being able to be

flexible is not something they can do. Depending on what they are

getting out of the ground. We are a mining company but not... We are not

comparing apples with apples We are consumer driven. Any type of

consumer driven company you have to adapt what you produce, manufacture

with the demand. This is what we are trying to do, in a mining company

which is a bit of a special world. We are getting there. Are you

worried about what is happening in the commodities market at the

moment? Of course, there is the slow down in China that we talk a lot

about, but also, there is becoming an increasing scarcity of diamonds

in the world. You and another company are if a real race to try

and find new diamond fields to explore, you are using technology, I

have been reading reports we saw a strong performance in 2014. They

think diamond sales will peak in 2017 but then they might drop off a

cliff No new mines have been found in the last 20 year, we are looking

for the next big mine. Some small ones have been found but not big

ones. The largest was in 1995. In Canada Yes, it was one of our mine,

so, since then, we are working with existing mines, so at constant rate

of production, after a window of three years we will see the

production going down, we are o lucky because De Beers have a long

life, most of them, but it is a bit worrying yes. Unfortunately we are

running out of time. I have one question for you, you are French,

you operate with debeer, of course, which is heavily involved in South

Africa and Canada, who did you support during the rugby World Cup?

I lost the French team quickly. I was fully behind the South African

team. You were behind the Springboks. Yes. Thank you so up

many for coming in. It has been a fascinating conversation. Many

We'll be talking to Brian Duffy, chief executive of Aurum Holdings,

which runs Watches of Switzerland stores.

So who's buying expensive wrist pieces and is this the best time

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Business Live on TV and online whenever you need to know.

Some of you have been getting in touch. This has come from Twitter. I

have had a message from Sebastian, this was in response to our question

where we asked you how much of a tech addict or Luddite you are. Do

you have to have the latest update? Sebastian said utility work, if it

does what I want it to do and I am a heavy phone user that is great for

me. I use a Samsung A5. Richard, are you a technology dinosaur, where are

you? I am at the dinosaur spectrum. Is your mobile phone this big? I am

happy with what I have got. Is Let us look at some of the other

stories. Is This caught our eye. So looking at the gulf news at the

economy section. Is World Bank has brought out this list, ranging the

best places in the world to do business. On the overall list,

Singapore scored number one, but this article looking at particularly

in this region, the Middle East and North Africa has done badly. It, the

UAE scored highly They are looking at things like title to assets,

these areas that make it easy or difficult to do business. The UAE

does well. The Middle East as a whole doesn't do as well as they

would like. I would suggest given the travails in that part of world,

both politically and economically, with the falling oil prices... The

UK came sixth. So that is not bad. Above the US and. And Germany.

George Osborne will be interested about that. Some much-needed good

news for him. Let us look at the Wall Street Journal. This is

interesting. So Facebook, in recognition of the fact that a huge

proportion of their business lies in emerging markets, where most of the

people they have to rely on 2 G connections. It is making its

employees work with 2 G internet. For an hour. To quote this article,

using 2 G is so onerous they couldn't subject it on their

employees for any longer. I suspect some of their developed world

customers have to put up with that performance, so maybe they are doing

it more for their total customer base. It is interesting firms like

that can be miles ahead of their, the bulk of their consumers and that

is what they are saying. Most of growth will be in the developing

world and they don't have the access to the speedy technology we

allegedly do. Quickly Richard, we have about 20

second, BP is in all the paper, we have a lot of oil giants coming,

there is a real theme there Poor results not surprisingly giving the

halving of the oil price. We will see more of that as the results run

through this sector. We will have to leave it there.