01/02/2017 World Business Report

Now for the latest financial news, with Sally Bundock

The tech giant reverses its sales slump thanks to its latest iPhone

reporting its highest quarterly revenue ever.

The President of the European Council says the new government

in Washington is one of the biggest threats facing Europe.

The Saudi Oil minister tells the BBC

where he believes the price of the black stuff is headed.

After three quarters in a row of falling revenues,

High demand for the iPhone seven boosted the tech giant and it

reported its highest ever quarterly revenues.

In the last three months of the year the firm sold 78.3 million iPhones.

That's a 5% rise since the year before.

sales in China fell almost 12% to just over $16 billion.

China has proved to be a difficult market with many homegrown rivals

Dave Lee, our North America technology reporter,

It is nice to see you. They did deliver what we wanted, a turnaround

in that falling revenue figure. It is backed up, but how long for? Not

for very long. They had a good holiday season, higher than. They

removed the headphone jack and that proved safe despite suspicions. But

Apple are now saying for the rest of the year do not expect huge sales.

People are expected to hold off for the next iPhone in September. It was

downcast from last year. But they are happy they reversed the trend of

losing growth. A good result for them today but they are still being

quite tentative about the future. Also, September is quite an

important time, isn't it, because they are expected to launch the next

iPhone, which will mark ten years since it arrived on this planet.

People have high expectations about what this new phone may offer them.

The question is, will they deliver on that? Apple need to. There has

always been a slump just before a new model comes out because people

do not want to spend money on a phone and find out it has been

replaced in a few months' time. People think that this new phone

will be very special since it is the 10th anniversary. I think there will

be a lot of pressure on Apple to create something quite remarkable

with the new iPhone. Especially because parts of the business are

growing quite impressively but Apple really still does rely on that money

coming in from the iPhone. If it does not keep that success coming in

it will be a real problem for them. All right, Dave, thank you very much

was staying up for us. See you soon. Does the new US administration pose

the same category of threat to the European Union

as radical Islam? That is the startling claim

made by the President of the European Council,

Donald Tusk. In a letter to EU leaders,

he told them to "use the change in the trade strategy of the US

to the EU's advantage," saying Washington's protectionist outlook

was a chance to look elsewhere Meanwhile, President Trump's top

trade adviser says Germany is using a "grossly undervalued"

euro to "exploit" the US Germany's Angela Merkel has

rejected the suggestion, saying it has always encouraged

the European Central Bank The United States remains the single

biggest economy in the world, The European Union's is second

and closing the gap. With me is Morris Reid

from the public strategy firm, Mercury, who worked

with both the Clinton Good morning. A war of words. Good

morning. The EU and the US. Not a good way to go. They feel they have

to have it tough talk with Donald Trump. I think it is the opposite. I

think they should be more engaging. The EU and the US have so much in

common in terms of export and import. They are on the same page.

Donald Trump is trying to fight people dumping. That is what

countries and America want. They have to tone down the tough talk.

They should be more engaged. They both need each other. It is

interesting. Much of the tough talking is coming from Peter, the

head of the new organisation of Donald Trump, the National Trade

Council, talking about the weakness of the Europe, how that benefits

Germany and Angela Merkel. None of this bodes well for the

transatlantic Trade and investment partnership, TTIP,, which Obama was

talking about with the EU. You do not hear much about TTIP. It is more

about the TPP and now Nafta. They are fighting for market share. If

you are looking at good competition for the US, especially with auto, it

is Germany. So they are trying to push things along. They know that

Angela Merkel is not engaging with the Central Bank. The Donald Trump

administration is doing the opposite, trying to intimidate Janet

Yellen. It is interesting. Of course, Janet Yellen and her team at

the IMF meet today. They criticised Germany with the euro being weak and

also Japan with the yen and China with the yuan as well. At the end of

the day, these are currency markets we are talking about. In most cases,

governments are independent. They are. When I was in the Clinton

administration, we worked on strong policy. It is interesting Donald

Trump is pushing hard on this. It has to do with exporting. Donald

Trump is try to focus on an export strategy and manipulate the market

is to create an environment for America to flourish. This guy is

smarter. He is manipulating people and pushing levers. He knows that he

needs to create jobs and exporting creates jobs. The euro has gone up

8% since we started. It has worked since we started. -- 1%. Thank you.

I appreciate you coming in. Let us move on. We have talked about

currencies and Apple and all that, so let us talk about oil now.

The Saudi Oil minister has told the BBC that OPEC's historic

agreement with non-OPEC members to cut oil output could see

the market balance out by July this year.

The deal was reached in December after two years of difficult

negotiation in a bid to slow the oil price.

Speaking to our chief International correspondent Lyse Doucet,

Khalid al-Falih said oil producers had been working hard

Saudi Arabia has always produced in response to market demand. Even in

the last two years, our market strategy was to sell to customers

who requested shipments for the next month to be scheduled. So every

barrel of oil that leaves Saudi Arabia's shores has been sent out at

the request of a customer. So, come July, the assumption markets will be

balanced. And if there is an agreement at that time to see the

ceiling lifted, Saudi Arabia will be responsive, rather than constrained,

in meeting those customers' demand. I would not expect an all out flood

of the market in July. What we want to see, in the first quarter is

always tough, but over the six months, what we want to see is a

large reduction in global infantry is to bring it back within the

five-year range. -- inventories. If we can do that, we will allow the

market to do its thing and that will allow markets to continue.

The on-line retail giant, Amazon, says it is investing $1.5 billion

building an air cargo hub in Kentucky.

The facility is expected to employ more than 2,700 people,

and will support the firms growing fleet of cargo aircraft.

The markets. A budget day in India We will wait for that. The Federal

Reserve is meeting in the US later today. The oil price is declining.

Poor results from Exon Mobile out of the US. That is how the markets are

trading. Hong Kong open today for the first time this week. I will see

you