27/07/2017 World Business Report

The accident happened on a ride known as the "Fireball".

Now it's time for World Business Report.

Two billion friends, soaring profits and a big thumbs up

But how much bigger can Facebook grow?

President Trump hails a $10 billion Taiwanese investment as proof he's

But one critic calls the deal a corporate welfare package.

Samsung's on track for record annual profits as it puts the exploding

We start in Silicon Valley where it seems there is no stopping

Facebook has seen another huge jump in profits as advertising revenues

keep on rising - let's show you just how big.

In the three months to the end of June, Facebook made a net profit

That's a jump of 71% on the same period last year,

and better than Wall Street was expecting.

In June the number of active monthly users crossed the two billion mark.

That means more than one in every four people on the planet use

And according to these latest results it's still rising.

Not surprisingly, so is Facebook's share price.

It has climbed by more than 40% since January -

giving the company a stock market value of getting on

That's more than 5 TIMES its value when it floated back in 2012.

Facebook is spending billions every quarter on the future

of its business - one area is Virtual Reality,

as the BBC's Chris Foxx has been finding out.

I am inside Facebook 's virtual reality chat room. I joined by

Rachel from Facebook. Why will more people want to chat in this way. You

can see, we are here together even though we are not in the same space

so that is a special thing. I can see it not being. You can see my

hand movements. You can get the idea of my body language. If I want to

change the view, you can pass one of those? This is a fun one. I place it

in the centre and now we are in someone's house. Right behind us!

There he is with his dog and his daughter, Max, learning how to walk.

This is very surreal. Colin Jacobs is Managing Director

at Immediate Future - an independent social

media consultancy Facebook, the unstoppable march of

its profits, has stalled in investors -- has told investors to

expect this not to go on forever. We have the big spending season at

Christmas and we think they will continue through a stellar 2017. If

you look at the profits, it is still based at the call newsfeed.

Admittedly, more coming from mobiles. But it does not seem to

have got the knack of making money from other platforms like Instagram

et cetera. Instagram is on the march. The strolling story feature

is proven to be very successful. The monetisation in WhatsAPP is great to

be interesting, and indeed messenger. In April, an

announcement... At a Facebook developer conference, they eat so

interesting products that are said to be coming online with WhatsApp

and messenger that will allow marketers to market their brands to

conversations taking place. If we were talking on Facebook messenger,

at this development... What would it do? It is an AI Digital assistants.

If we are having a conversation about going out, the tool will

recognise that and serve relevant option. For consumer brands, there

would be appetite for that to happen. The user growth is another

topic. Can they sustain this growth rate? 2 billion around the world, is

it reaching saturation point? If you look at a gruff from ten years ago.

There is a pretty consistent line gruff on growth. The Western world

is slowing, no doubt about that but Facebook is about to explode in

developing countries. It is well reported they are looking to deliver

free Internet into developing countries so user growth will be

exponential. The science of very encouraging.

Let's stay in the US because President Trump has been

hailing a $10 billion investment by Taiwanese electronics

giant Foxconn - as proof his America First policy

Foxconn is the world's top contract electronics manufacturer -

assembling big name products like Apple's iPhone.

At a press conference at the White House its CEO unveiled

plans for a new plant in Wisconsin making LCD screens -

But as Samira Hussain reports from New York -

there are questions from some about the cost of the deal

a large part of Donald Trump speech to American voters was about

increasing the number of manufacturing jobs in America's old

industrial areas. Certainly, at the White House event, he made no bones

about his personal responsibility for the new factory. We represent

the return of LCD electronics and electronic manufacturing to the

United States, the country that we love, that is where we want our

jobs. To make such an incredible invest in, they put in faith and

confidence in the future of the American economy. In other words, if

I did not get elected, he definitely would not be spending $10 billion.

Behind the theatre of the announcement, some familiar concerns

about the price US taxpayers will pay. News reports ahead of the

announcements indicate the tie when his company could benefit from $3

billion in tax breaks in exchange for the Wisconsin plan. One local

politician has referred to it as a corporate welfare package and there

is why spectres is about economists about how many such jobs can be

created in an era of increasing automation and ever fiercer

competition from overseas. And now, Mr Trump will bask in the approval

from his base on one of his compelling campaign promises.

Samsung Electronics is on track to make a record profits after its best

ever second-quarter earnings. They were up to $12 billion in the three

months till the end of June. It comes as his boss faces a corruption

trial and the company recovers from a massive recall of its late ship

smart phone. Sharanjit Leyl is following this

for us in Singapore Of course, those gains are due

overwhelmingly to the demand for semiconductors and chips and rather

surprisingly by the success of its new Galaxy S eight smartphone

because those numbers were more less in line with preliminary forecast

that released a few weeks ago. Also, it comes as the firm endures

challenges elsewhere, not least with the trial of its air apparent almost

in its final proceedings. That was a scandal that and old South Korea and

lead to the impeachment of its president. The S eight has received

glowing reviews which is helping it recover from the recalls which cause

the firm millions due to explode in battery chips. Amazon.com Facebook,

Alibaba also helped Samsung railing on a shortage of memory chips.

Prices on certain types of chips nearly doubled from a year earlier

and record highs this year shrugging off all the drama that the company

has had to endure. Thank you very much.

German car giant Volkswagen has said cooperating with rivals is standard

industry practise and that it helps customers

The comments, following an emergency board meeting,

come after allegations in the German press that BMW,

Daimler and the VW group engaged in collusion over diesel emissions

and other issues including pricing- claims they have dismissed

Let's take a look at the markets. Tokyo stocks and other markets in

Asia rose on Thursday morning. That was back at optimism of the

companies posting results better than expected. The dollar fell after

Federal Reserve is kept interest rates on hold as expected but it has

given expect is an appetite. The three main US markets moved higher

as US stocks surged to a fresh record highs. The Dow gaining almost

half a percent, the most impressive, after Boeing sought after a strong

earnings report. You get in touch with me on Twitter. We will be going

to the papers in just a moment. Don't go away.

New figures suggest there are inconsistencies in the way drug