03/11/2015 World Business Report

Protests across California, with residents up in arms about how long

you can rent your property. We will find out if this is going to put

businesses like Airbnb at risk. And the tobacco market keeps going from

strength to strength. Gives me about eight minutes and I

will give you a fascinating snapshot about the world of money and

business. What is going on? Let us look at this.

The accommodation website Airbnb has shaken up

the global travel industry, but in its home town of San Francisco,

Residents are due to vote later on Tuesday on a proposal to limit

short-term rentals on apartments and homes to just 75-days per year,

with hosting websites like Airbnb responsible for removing listings

The company has spent $8 million in an effort to defeat

the measure as well as hiring top political operatives.

This could be a crucial setback for Airbnb as it prepares to go public.

And this is what is making some locals in San Francisco angry.

Over the past five years, average rent has risen by more than

75%, with sites like Airbnb being blamed for pushing up prices.

And prices are climbing in New York and LA, with those cities too

Dave Lee in San Francisco has the details.

One of San Francisco's many nicknames is the seven x seven,

so-called because they city is just packed into 49 square miles of

land. It is because of this condensed space and the reputation

of San Francisco as both a great place to live and visit that have

seen rent prices soaring. Many people have blamed different factors

for this, including Airbnb, the website that allows people to list

their on homes for people to stay in. We have lost housing that has

been converted into full-time tourist accommodation at the time

when the city has been going through its worst housing crisis in more

than 100 years. On Tuesday, the matter is being put to vote. The new

proposition would limit the number of days someone could temporarily

rent out a room to just 75 days per year, which would have a dramatic

impact on Airbnb's business. If the people of San Francisco vote in

favour of the measure, it could be highly symbolic. The city in which

Airbnb was eventually found and will have essentially kicked it out. --

was essentially founded. Many Airbnb hosts have been calling people not

in multiple languages. The greatest concern of this is that it takes a

disproportionate measures to address the housing crisis. It cannot and

will not do any such thing. If this proposition passes, rents will not

go down. Home prices will not go down. Thousands of apartment will

not suddenly be made available for rent. The yes campaign, which

includes the hotel industry, is much less well resourced but it has also

been putting out its own television ads. This does not say that you

cannot rent out an extra room in your house. That is fine if you want

to do that. But the vast majority of Airbnb's listings and almost the

entire lot of listings on other websites are not people renting

spare rooms in their homes. They are renting full units that people do

not live in. Early polls suggest the no vote is winning but this will not

be the end of it. Other cities like New York are also considering what

the impact of Airbnb's popularity will be on their communities.

Now, the global tobacco industry is worth a whopping $530 billion a year

and despite tougher regulations in many developing countries, plain

packaging legislation and increased awareness about the risks of

smoking, that number is expected to increase.

That is largely due to growing demand in emerging economies.

Imperial Tobacco, the fourth largest tobacco company in the world,

is reporting results later in a few hours and will not only be

banking on tradition cigarettes but also the burgeoning e-cig market,

Professor Linda Bauld is health policy director at the Institute

of Social Marketing and dean of research at the University

Thank you for joining us at this ungodly hour. Is it that we are

giving up smoking in the West but those in the developing world are

taking up smoking more and more? That is correct. Sales are falling

in western Europe and Northern America, for example, but they are

increasing in China. Tobacco related deaths in China among men will rise

from 10% in 1991 to 30% in 2030. That is where the market is growing.

Not the West but elsewhere in the world. Even many years ago, you

would think that lots of people smoke in China. But they used to

smoke local brands. Now that they have the money to smoke these

Western brands, have they changed? Absolutely. The Chinese market is a

global market for the tobacco industry. We also have markets in

South America and in Africa, where there is very little legislation to

limit the tobacco industry's ability to market products there. Imperial

Tobacco has admitted that it has been very slow to jump on the

e-cigarette bandwagon but it has now caught up on that and has its own

e-cigarette division. But additional cigarette makers, is this the

future? -- for a traditional cigarette makers. The global

e-cigarette market is around 6 billion. They have a 100 fold

increase on that in place of tobacco because the place where e-cigarette

users come from is the same place as smokers. These are tobacco users.

These are the markets they can expand in. We know that Imperial

Tobacco purchased the company that was set up by the Chinese pharmacist

who actually invented e-cigarettes. Although they were slow to begin,

they have come into it now and they are making products that are

appealing to smokers. We have 2.6 million e-cigarette users in the UK

and they are far less harmful than tobacco, so this could well be a

step for the future. Plain packaging... We have in Australia.

Does it work? We are forecast to have over 1 billion tobacco related

deaths this century unless we take more action and standardising

packaging removes the last form of tobacco marketing. We will also be

introducing it in Europe soon. Thank you.

Now, luxury smartphone maker Vertu has been sold to Chinese investors.

Let's go to our business hub in Singapore and Rico Hizon.

This is a company that sold its first phone in 2002. Yes, and now

the Chinese companies want a larger cut of the smartphone market. They

have made their mark in the low-end smartphone market and now they want

to dominate the luxury smartphone space as well. Not many smartphone

users are aware of Vertu, which is formally owned by Nokia. It makes

handcrafted luxury smartphones that feature leather cases, precious

stones and so on. Very wing bling. -- bling-bling. Vertu and EQT has

not disclosed the terms of the deal. If you bet on the Melbourne Cup

winner, which was a 100 to one chance when, you might just be able

to afford one of the smartphones. -- win.

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