27/01/2017 Asia Business Report

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

Google parent, out of ode, gives its forecast. -- Alphabet. Hideo Kojima

takes us on a tour of his studio. Good morning, Asia. Hello, world.

I'm Rico Hizon. Thank you for investing your time with another

Asia Business Report. It's a Friday. We start with Google's efforts to

diversify away from its main search engine business. It is beginning to

pay off. Alphabet said profits rose by 8% to over $5 billion. It was

lower than we expected. I asked our reporter how the core business,

Google, has been performing. Google is about how many ads can be put

among the search results. 36% more people are clicking on the

advertisements than last year. That is a good sign. More people clicking

on them. But as the company continues to move over to the Mobile

world as opposed to the desktop search engine, it is finding

advertisers are willing to pay less for those advertisements. That is

happening more. The amount they want to spend earning those clicks is

lower than before. Good signs of growth. But still unbelievably you

could still say Google is transitioning to mobile. And, of

course, Alphabet has other bets, apart from Google. How are they

faring? What we are looking out for this time is the hardware they

brought out in the last year. The Google phone, Pixel, is lumped in

with all the other stuff. There is a suggestion it is performing well,

though we do not know how much. The company has grown revenue in things

that do not make money in the beginning but will in the future.

Revenue is growing. They are only marginally beating the costs. Still

a big loss for the company as a whole. But the investors group is

demand of lowering the costs is happening, though gradually. San

Francisco. And a Singapore fund says it will invest in Alphabet's

subsidiary focussing on healthcare. Alibaba is muscling in on the global

payments industry. They are buying it for $880 million. That is part of

the on line payment industry. That gives it a foothold in the multi

billion dollar global remittances sector. Toshiba will reveal how much

of a multimillion dollar charge it will stake on its new American

business. It has been reported that the hold in Westinghouse nuclear

enterprise could be as big as $6 billion to raise money for a

spin-off. This is the core moneymaking unit. Microsoft reported

its results, 3.5% rise in profits. That is due to be -- the Cloud. They

have moved towards Cloud services and mobile acquisitions away from

its software business. US President Donald Trump the British Prime

Minister Theresa May to the White House later this Friday. She will be

the first Foreign Minister to meet with Donald Trump since he took

office last week. They are expected to discuss a potential trade deal

following Britain's exit from the EU. We have the details. We are

excited that Theresa May is coming on Friday. We are looking forward to

it. It may not seem like it, but President Donald Trump and Prime

Minister Theresa May have a few things in common. The rise in power

was killed by a rejection in the establishment. They are trying to

create bilateral trade deals. When he talks to Prime Minister Theresa

May, he will have a great conversation about the potential for

greater trade with the UK. The pressure is on. Negotiations are

imminent. Kneeling down a trade agreement with the US would give

Theresa May a real big boost back home. But Donald Trump also wants to

see a quick agreement. His America first rhetoric has many world

leaders weary. I will be talking to Donald Trump about the issues that

we share, about how we can build on the special relationship. It is the

special relationship that allows us to say when we find things

unacceptable. The fact she is the first world leader to visit the

White House under a Donald Trump administration is perhaps a

testament to Britain's special relationship with the United States

pillar we have always had that special relationship with Britain.

And that reflects in the first visit here. He has had a great

conversation with her. He looks forward to having her here. But we

could always be closer. Samira Hussain reporting. The flying

kangaroo has taken off to Beijing. They are expanding their business

after a record profit happening in 2016. Previously, Qantas had been

losing billions of dollars with a three-year restructuring efforts

under Alan Joyce having a turnaround that was remarkable. We spoke in

Beijing about why China is a remarkable and attractive market.

That has been a huge boost in the market. The amount of Chinese

travellers coming to Australia is now up to 1.2 million a year. By

2018, it will be the largest tourism market into Australia. It has more

than doubled since that period. We have also seen a Free Trade

Agreement between Australia and China, which has really boosted the

business demand and business traffic on that route. And we have also seen

a big increase in agricultural products in put -- in particular. We

know that fresh dairy products will go even further. A bit different. We

believe this is absolutely the time to come into the market to make

money on this. This decision to reopen the flight route into Beijing

is obviously driven more by a Chinese passengers coming to

Australia, not the other way around. Is that right? The big explosion is

with Chinese passengers coming in. But with the Free Trade Agreement we

have seen the Beijing market bring the 11th largest corporate market

into Australia. We served the top ten. Beijing is what we do not

serve. It makes sense for the Australian corporate market where

there is huge demand to go to Beijing. Chief Alan Joyce. He may

not be a household name, but the game designer from Japan, Hideo

Kojima, is behind some of the most successful videogame. He invented

the stealth genre still popular today. His latest game has his fans

in suspense. Move slowly. For decades, he made Metal Gear titles

for the game company Konami, which made millions of copies. But after

splitting from them controversially in 2015, gamers across the world are

wanting to find out what happens next. There have been two trailers

so far about his new game, Death Stranding, which will be a way

station exclusive. -- Playstation. TRANSLATION: We want this game to be

something people can get into very easily. But after they pay for 1.5

hours, they will see something different. It is something they have

not played before. So the motion capture... It is normal to stay

tightlipped about upcoming projects like this. It is far too soon for

people to test it. So no one can say if it will be any good. Are you in

the game? LAUGHTER. But the idea it is different from what has come

before is no surprise to be as we visit places that have been

important turning point in his history, he explains how he sees the

gaming industry changing forever, with movies, games, and music,

converging in different ways that the TRANSLATION: Things such as

games and music and novels and movies, they were all meshed

together into one new type of entertainment. What struck me about

spending time with Hideo Kojima, is here is a man who has achieved

everything there is to achieve in the game industry. But he said he

would not retire. He is still passionate and energetic about

technology and gaming. And he is still coming up with new ideas. And

he said he has set himself the biggest challenge yet. He has

changed the gaming industry once. Now he wants to do it again. BBC

News, Tokyo. A brilliant videogame maker. The markets now. Asian

markets, as you can see, are quite firm, most of them. The Nikkei is up

by two fifths of 1%. The older in positive territory. I am Rico Hizon.

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