18/08/2017 Asia Business Report

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

The world's largest personal computer maker Lenovo faces a

shrinking market and higher cost for parts. And as some of the world's

biggest cruise ship causing super-sized environmental problems?

-- are some of the. Happy Friday. Good morning, world. Glad you could

join us. I'm Rico Hizon. The world's biggest computer Lenovo is reporting

tough times. The company returned a profit earlier this year, even

though there was a drop in PC shipments. The computer maker has

been losing in its mobile division as well as rising component cost.

Lenovo's chief executive is hoping the Chinese market will help the

company maintain its leading decision. Earlier I spoke to someone

from Tech 460 TV. The PC market right now is more than just PCs and

laptops, we are looking at new areas of virtual reality and even wearable

tech. The PC market has seen a decline. The chief executive of

Lenovo said they are relying heavily on the Chinese market, but now there

is much more competition in the mainland. I would sort of agree and

disagree with that. The Chinese domestic market is still Lenovo's

biggest. As you say competition is strong. On a global scale Lenovo is

still strong in that area. They are trading slightly behind HP. They are

suffering in the PC market and also in the smartphone space. They are

losing money there, especially some tough competition from the likes of

Huawei. How are they likely to turn around this business? I wouldn't say

it's a huge competition in a sense because even in China companies like

Huawei are very strong. But Lenovo has do integrate PCs and smart

phones so that they have a strong position for users in China. What

about rising component prices? Could this put pressure on the bottomline

going forward? This isn't unique to Lenovo. Overall a lot of PC makers

are facing this. Mainly because high-end devices use more expensive

components. But if you look at mid-to low end devices, they should

be able to compete very well. You mentioned they are expanding things

like virtual reality. When will this reflect on revenues? Are not sure

right now but every year Lenovo showcases this new technology.

Revenue wise they are still strong on the PC market but slowly they are

looking at new devices. Even laptops can be powerful enough to run

virtual reality. The market awaits earnings of Lenovo.

In other news, Alibaba had another lacklustre quarter thanks to slow

growth in their shopping business and cloud computing. The e-commerce

giant posted a 56% jump in revenues for the three months until June,

which came in at 7.5 William dollars, blowing past market

expectations. -- billion dollars. Walmart has released higher

full-year profits and sales figures for the past three months but it

looks like investors aren't happy with the results.

Shares have fallen overnight. Now, do you appreciate our life on the

rolling deep? If so you may be one of the 25 million people who took a

holiday onboard a cruise ship last year. Industry major business and is

growing rapidly. But as we report, the new generation of giant,

floating hotels aren't welcome everywhere.

They are floating cities. Majestic and luxurious. Sailing serenely

through the waters that surround some of the most beautiful places on

earth. But when these vessels come close to land or interport not

everyone is pleased to see them. For many people cruise is a great way to

see the world, at least to find some better weather. But the industry has

grown and so have the ships. Some modern cruise liners can carry more

than 5000 people that can cross oceans at 30 mph. But critics say

this comes with a hefty environmental cost and that could be

leaving the industry in choppy waters.

Like other large ships, cruise liners and heavy marine fuels, tons

of it every hour, and produce emissions that are sulphur dioxide,

nitrogen oxide and Partick units, known to be harmful to human health.

The problem with cruise liners is not only are the passengers exposed

when on the ship but when the ship is important it keeps the engines

running because it needs to keep the systems running and that can result

in some of the emissions being spread of the city, even when the

ship isn't moving, and really we don't know what the effects of

exposure over a lifetime of that is. In some port cities like Venice,

their effect on air quality is one reason the giant cruise ships are

rapidly becoming unwelcome guest. Yet cruise firms say they are

working hard to clean up their act. We are very small part of a problem,

but we are playing our part very actively to make sure that we do the

best we possibly can to contribute to a improvement in those ports and

cities. Among the improvements on the way are high-tech exhaust

filtering systems for existing vessels, while some new ships will

be powered by liquid knighthood -- liquid nitro gas. There is a risk

more and more cities could see the back of this Queens of the seas.

Turning to trade. The US and South Korea will start talks on mending a

trade agreement that President Trump has called a horrible deal. South

Korea is the United States' sixth-largest goods trading partner.

Negotiations are scheduled to kick off next week. China's Unicom says

it will suspend trading until further notice, after the state

owned Communications group announced it would try to raise roughly 12

William dollars from about a dozen investors, including Alibaba and 10

cents Holdings -- billion. This is part of the mixed ownership strategy

that encourages state entitlements to take on private capital. A

Chinese bicycle sharing company is expanding into the US. It is

applying 1000 bicycles to Seattle this month as part of a pilot

programme that will increase in September. Like sharing has been

growing in countries, including Singapore. -- like sharing. Just

below this building I see a lot of these bicycle sharing opportunities

and you need an app to use them? These start-ups have expanded super

aggressively across the globe, including in Singapore. This is one

of the two biggest and so what we do is you take your mobile app and you

unlock the bicycle and then you can write it anywhere you want and park

it pretty much anywhere you want for a small fee. In China you pay one

yuan, about 15 US cents. Really cheap. The interesting thing about

Ofo is it is valued at between $1 billion and $2 billion. The founder

is 26 and he came up with the idea while eating fried chicken one night

with his university schoolmates. But is this business sustainable? The

answer currently is no and many investors question how they will

make money because competition has become increasingly ferocious. Ofo,

the bicycles are yellow, but you have other companies that have

theirs in orange, yellow, red and green... Pick a colour! And they are

all offering really aggressive discounts, sometimes offering the

bicycles for free, just to get their name out there so people use them.

When they don't make money and spend aggressively to expand, the question

is how they will monetise. Some people think that maybe what they

have a big user base idyll can... That companies can eventually sell

the market data. Have you tried this bicycles? I have. Are they

comfortable? Singapore is flat see you can cycle wherever you want

easily. You have convinced me! I will try one this afternoon.

Moving to the markets. The stocks are down sharply. As you can see.

This is following the deadly attack in Spain and rising concerns

President Trump may have endangered the economy. As you can see, the

Nikkei is skidding to its lowest level in three months in early

morning trade. The SNP as 200 is also in negative territory. Wall

Street down heavily overnight as you can see. With that we and this

edition of Asia Business Report. Thanks were investing your time with

us and