17/05/2017 Asia Business Report


17/05/2017

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

:00:00.:00:17.

A strong earnings results for way bow. Will we see similar numbers for

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Tencent? -- Tencent?. Good morning, Asia. Glad you could

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join us for this midweek edition of Asia Business Report. Chinese social

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media giant Weibo has reported revenues of just under $200 million,

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an increase of 67% compared the year ago levels. Profits are coming in at

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about $47 million US. The company claims 347 million monthly active

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users, an increase of 30% over the past year. Another tech giant in

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China, Tencent, is tipped to report encouraging numbers today. But with

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a saturated market, what are the other avenues for growth? Certainly

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they need to start looking outside of the Chinese market. There's still

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a lot of growth in Chinese market, for example Tencent are actively

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looking outside, looking at not just China but around Hong Kong and

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Singapore. The Chinese communities in Europe and America. And also

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exploring other opportunities. We are exploring advertising channels,

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getting companies to put their brands on Wii chat, for Tencent.

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They are already approaching the number of users that WhatsApp has?

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In January WhatsApp said they had 1.2 billion active monthly users. I

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think WeChat are gunning to overtake WhatsApp. They are also targeting

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international markets. WhatsApp and Twitter are already having a major

:02:21.:02:26.

footprint in the international market, but the likes of Weibo and

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Tencent are catching up just with that powerful billion strong

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mainland base and the Chinese Dyas Barack. You look at the Western

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counterparts. -- diaspora they have a limited ability to get their

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footprint into the market. If they have a footprint in the mainland

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market, this western technology giants could overtake the mainland

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companies? They have to integrate with the Chinese governments. Which

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will take time. That will certainly take time. Some of the world's Egypt

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military contractors are robbing elbows with buyers at the government

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defence position. Crossing over to my colleague. Wheeling and dealing

:03:16.:03:22.

for military hardware? That's right. Right now I am at the naval base and

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it's a veritable parking lot for warships on display. Kindly you can

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see the Chinese frigate from the People's liberation Army and you

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have the Pakistani frigate as well. Why am I here? We have all of these

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military contractors who are willing and dealing at the international

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maritime defence exhibition. And it is all against the backdrop of

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strategic uncertainty on the Korean peninsular in the South China Sea.

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Is there evidence that a lot of people are buying more? I caught up

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with one European manufacturer who is selling increasingly to the

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Asians. Countries in this region generally are starting to realise

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that there are things going on around them and they are not aware

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of what's happening. Events are occurring just over the horizon and

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nations and armed forces don't have the awareness or the flexible

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response. We see a lot of interest in our products, like global eye, a

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multiplatform surveillance. An ability to keep the man on events in

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air, land and sea. We have our swordfish maritime patrol platform.

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We stay out all on time, get there quickly, maximum endurance and

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capability. But again, compact and affordable platform. A naval

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solutions, warships, extremely advanced technology that you can see

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on display, that is of great interest. We also build radars,

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command and control systems, so that you can network and link your forces

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together. Who are you increasingly selling to in the region? India and

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Australia are our biggest market at the moment. We see huge potential to

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do great future business in India and Australia, for example. But

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that's to exclude everyone up -- anyone else. We have a big base in

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Thailand and Indonesia. We are active in Japan and Korea, Malaysia.

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We have great interest in our products from pretty much every

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country in this region and we see this show as a great venue to

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engage. Not just with Asia-Pacific but with the world. But you can't

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sell to China? We are European as a company, we are subject to the same

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restrictions. We have some commercial business in air traffic

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control. The rules are clear in China. No business there and we are

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not active there. Who are the buyers of these military

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hardware? There is evidence that Asian countries are spending more.

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For instance, Singapore is one of the largest spenders in Southeast

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Asia. They spend about 3% of their GDP on defence. That's how much the

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Americans spend percentagewise and just yesterday the Singapore

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government announced they bought two more German manufactured submarines

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from one manufacturer and we have a Chinese here, the Chinese pavilion

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are at the conference for the first time. They are being represented by

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a number of companies. Thank you so much for the update.

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More and more jobs looks set to be automated in the near future,

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something concerning workers and politicians. But how capable are the

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latest machines and other likely to replace humans altogether or help us

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all be more productive in our work? This report from an exhibition in

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Paris where the world's bleeding robotics companies and start ups are

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showing off their creations. From around the world the robots

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have come to Paris to show off their new skills. This one response to the

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colour green. It seems to be distracted by the cameraman. They

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are leading the factories and trying to find roles in our everyday lives.

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It has three functions. The first is to try to monitor the health of the

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people. Carer is one job they are after. It is designed to be a

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companion, alerting relatives if necessary. It will survey the mood

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of the person. If the elderly comes with a low activity it will alert

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you. So it is really like a nurse at home. More and more robots are now

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appearing in customer service roles. This is essentially the kind of

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automatic machine you see in lots of cinemas already, but with a robot

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interface. I can interact with it. I can pay for my tickets, as you would

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normally, but I can also leave a video review and it reacts to be in

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certain ways. They claim it is 30 times more interactive than a

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standard ticket machine. Do we really want to interact with a robot

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when we go to the cinema? I'm not so sure. This Chinese robot is supposed

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to help out in a supermarket, offering advice to customers. You

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have to bend down to talk to it. Why is it so small? If a robot is too

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big people will think it is dangerous. So when we decided we

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need to have a robot that is lovely, to look more friendly for the users.

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The big fear of course if they will take jobs. This autonomous tractor

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is the farm worker of the future. This delivery robot could replace a

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bad drivers. The industry claims the robots will improve our working

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lives. They only take out the part that is really repetitive, tedious

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or dangerous. Or not interesting, where we have no human value. And

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then humans have more time. This autonomous fish shouldn't take

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anybody's jobs and they don't need feeding. We will have to get used to

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robots in all sorts of unexpected places.

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Stay within -- staying with technology and Twitter shares rose

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on the night. -- overnight. The new CEO will be back to work full-time

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in a couple of weeks and will focus on guiding the company's culture. He

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left in 2011 during executive shakeup is at the social media

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platform. Before we go here is a look at the

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markets. Asia is in negative territory in early Wednesday trade.

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It is hurt by weaker than expected US housing data and political

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turmoil in Washington is raising concerns about the outlook for

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passing expected legislation. The Nikkei is down by three quarters of

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1% and the All Ords giving back .5%. Thanks for investing your time with

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us. Sport Today is coming up. The top stories this hour: Reports

:10:33.:10:41.

from the US say President Trump asked his former FBI Chief to drop

:10:42.:10:44.

an investigation into a key aide.

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