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Upstream Business Solutions recently concluded the 3-day exhibition – India International Cargo Show 2022 (powered by Allcargo Group) in Mumbai on 2nd December. IICS brought together air-ocean-surface logistics under one roof and furnished a platform for leaders to discuss business and deliberate growth opportunities. The event witnessed 80+ exhibiting brands, 50+ speakers across 7 sessions and 10k+ visitors including shippers, consignees, manufacturers, exporters, importers and logisticians.
The show was inaugurated by the Honourable Minister of Industries, Shir Uday Samant, Government of Maharashtra along with Mr. Shashi Kiran Shetty (Founder and Chairman, Allcargo Group). Other dignitaries joining the inauguration were Mr. Shankar Shinde (Chairman, Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India), Mr. Afzal Malbarwala (President, Air Cargo Agents Association of India), Mr. Xerrxes Master (President, Association of Multimodal Transport Operators Of India), and Mr. Mohit Mewani (Partner and CEO, Upstream Business Solutions).
The IICS Show 2022 came at an apt moment as the Indian Logistics Industry is poised to take India’s economy on the next trajectory. From rebalancing priorities to exploring newer geographies, cargo and logistics leaders are thinking bigger and broader as they gear up to deal with an increasingly agile and volatile demand.
The IICS Exhibition was optimal for business leaders to discuss integrated movement of goods and get a head start on their business plan for 2023. More than 10,000 visitors across various industries such as pharma, automobile, textile, perishables, chemicals, petroleum, FMGC, project etc. joined this exhibition to meet the who’s who of the Indian cargo and logistics industry, discover the latest trends and gather insights from the community. Trade visitors could also network with service providers outside their partner profile, giving them a unique opportunity to explore additional channels for the movement of their goods.
Leading national and international brands in the likes of Allcargo Group, JW Group, Navio Shipping, Abrao Group, Cathay Pacific, Clearship Group, Kenya Airways, SA Consultants, Taag Angola Airlines, Samsara Shipping, MSC, Egypt Air, Softlink Global, and many more joined together to promote growth opportunities in air cargo, marine cargo, transportation and logistics sectors.
The exhibition was supported by a concurrent conference where senior industry leaders shared their thought leadership on the growth and development of the Indian Ocean Cargo and Air Cargo Ecosystem. Industry stalwarts and senior leaders from leading companies like FIATA, Brihanmumbai Custom Brokers Association, Turkish Airlines, Emirates Airline, UltraTech Cement, Grasim Industries, Mumbai International Airport, EKF Global Logistics, Asian Paints, Alkem Laboratories, Blue Dart, GMR Group, Flipkart, Sennheiser Electronics, Delhivery, Ericsson Global and many more shared their thought leadership at the IICS Conference.
“IICS Exhibition is curated for leaders to discuss business and grow beyond global standards. The central idea for this exhibition is the success and growth of our exhibitors. I am grateful for the support we have received from the industry. The journey has just begun, we will together revolutionise the cargo and logistics industry.”Mohit Mewani, Partner and CEO, of Upstream Business Solutions
A multi-faceted event also witnessed an exclusive closed-door Executive Committee Meeting for the Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India – FFFAI on the occasion of their 61st Foundation Day.


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In an interview with DualShockers, artist Sandy Gordon at the developer Yacht Club Games, the team behind the stupidly successful Shovel Knight, has some interesting news for fans. According to that interview, there’s a certainty that Shovel Knight 2 is “sure happening at some point” meaning that a sequel is coming. It will likely be some time before Shovel Knight 2 becomes a thing.
According to Gordon, they are “sure” Shovel Knight 2 will “happen at some point” as “it’s something we talk about a lot” internally. Developers within the studio have also been working on various spin-offs like Shovel Knight Dig and Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon
So at least hardcore fans of the wonderful and beautiful game won’t be left completely without a Shovel Knight experience in 2020 and beyond. The biggest hurdle that Yacht Club has to get over is finishing its various other projects first. Yacht Club has been hard on work on a variety of other titles. The company has a multitude of different games in the works, one of which is Shovel Knight Dig. The new game is being made in cooperation with Nitrome, and is set to be released sometime in 2021.
Showdown and King of Cards, the last two Shovel Knight expansions were released in December 2019. These expansions added new enemies, levels and other gameplay content that helped extend the experience. Shovel Knight: Showdown adds a handful of new game modes, making the game more similar to a fighting game than the base game. Players compete for treasure across different melee competitions. Even without those addons though, there is so much fun to be had with the base game.

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Facebook is attempting to put a rather bruising start to 2018 behind it with a massive advertising blitz.
The campaign appears to be only US-based and features an extensive out of home campaign and a TVC titled “Facebook here together” that will also run in cinemas and on its own pages. Check out the ad below:
The tech behemoth has recently been accused to spreading fake news and even influencing the 2016 presidential elections. In March, it was embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica fiasco and was forced to admit that 87 million users had had their data misappropriated.
Meanwhile, the OOH campaign will run across the US and will attempt to pacify Facebook users that the company is serious about things like fake news, spam, the misuse of user’s data and clickbait.
Avid Collective has officially announced the appointment of former Scout Publishing and Junkee Media executive Niki Jones (lead image) as its new head of enablement operations. In the newly created role, Jones will be responsible for overseeing operational activities across various arms of business with a focus on partner engagement. “Niki’s appointment comes at an […]
Brand extension agency Asembl has whipped up a wonder in every bite with the partnering of Streets’ Golden Gaytime and Griffin’s Marvels for the first ever Golden Gaytime Inspired Biscuits. Available now from Coles stores nationally and online, the Griffin’s Marvels Golden Gaytime Inspired Biscuits are a wonder in every bite – irresistible Golden Gaytime […]


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Samsung’s phones are arguably the most recognisable of any running the Android OS. Bearing the ‘Galaxy’ moniker, the phones have one of the best brand images built up, perhaps falling second only to devices from Cupertino, California.
The Galaxy SIII has been a resounding success during its lifespan, but it wasn’t a sudden new competitor: it was the progression of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S models, and its time in the limelight is coming to an end due to the announcement of the Galaxy S4.
While some may argue that the ‘Galaxy’ naming has been run into the ground by millions of low-end devices, the same complaint has never been leveled at the Galaxy S models. That one little letter makes all the difference.
Our friends at TopTienMobiel in The Netherlands have put together this infographic that we thought was pretty cool. Take a gander at how the Galaxy S name has been evolving since 2010 below.
Source: TopTienMobiel.nl | Image via TopTienMobiel


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Anjali Sud's first day as Vimeo CEO was an eventful one. Not only was she standing in front of the company as its new leader, she was telling them that things were about to change. A lot. After more than a decade operating as a home for streaming content — sometimes a YouTube competitor, other times coming for Netflix, never quite reaching either goal — Vimeo was going to become a SaaS company. It would be wooing IT managers and vice presidents, not A-list directors and Golden Globes voters. Even after the initial shock wore off, she knew it would take a while to change the structures, incentives, goals and workflows to become a different kind of company.
That was 2017. Now it's early 2021, and Vimeo is on a tear. Sud and her team are getting ready to spin out of Barry Diller's IAC later this year, turning Vimeo into a public company in its own right. They've raised $450 million in capital ahead of that change, and are currently valued at about $5.7 billion. Vimeo has more than 200 million users, 1.5 million of whom pay for its services. Its revenue increased 54% in the most recent quarter compared to a year ago, and by some measures the company is already profitable.
The wildest part of it all, Sud said, is that most people still have no idea what Vimeo's up to. "Everybody still thinks of us as, like, the indie version of YouTube," she said. "They definitely do not think of us as a B2B SaaS company that's powering the town halls and trainings and marketing videos of Fortune 100 organizations." The new Vimeo doesn't sound as sexy as the old Vimeo, but it's turning into a much better business.
Anjali Sud was also this week's guest on the Source Code podcast — you can listen to our full interview above. The questions and answers below have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
I'm guessing you've gotten really good at the 30-second "what Vimeo is now" pitch.
You'd think that I would be better! But I think so. The pandemic really crystallized things for us, to be honest. Anytime you're embarking on a new strategy, you have conviction, you have passion, but you don't have certainty. You don't know it's the right strategy. And there are many times along the way where you sort of question, "OK, this is the angle we're coming into the market, is it the right one? Are we off about X, are we off about Y? The idea that even large organizations are going to be using video in every way they communicate, is that a little crazy?"
Those questions, I think, are ones that we've really wrestled with. That I've wrestled with. And the pandemic has really helped accelerate the demand. Today, if I said to you "you know, large organizations are going to use video to train employees, or to do product demos or support," you would think that makes total sense. But three years ago, people were very skeptical. It's much easier now to just say it in terms everyone gets and understands.
Let's walk through that a little bit, actually, because I think understanding the video space is tough. When we talk about video, we either tend to talk about Zoom or Netflix. Those are the two sides of the spectrum here. And I feel like you're exploring, and in some sense kind of inventing, this new third space: what video is for people at work. Is that right? Paint the ecosystem for me here a little bit.
As you think about the evolution of video, it started as a form of entertainment. You had Hollywood Studios, and then you have Netflix, and it's a form of entertainment. And that's awesome. And then you had the consumer wave with social media and phones, and it actually became a form of personal expression. You look at what's happening with TikTok, it's a form of personal expression.
Then I think you have this third wave that we're going through now, which is now businesses using video for communication. It started with the meeting; meetings have been video-ified. And that's permanently changed behavior.
Then the next phase of that is really taking these other pieces of video, and how do you actually bring that into businesses and how they communicate? And I'll give you just like some examples. A meeting, you know, there's a meeting, but then what about events? Conferences? Town halls? What about onboarding and training new employees? What about marketing? What about every Instagram post being a video because it gets higher clicks and engagement, and is prioritized in feeds? What about when you go to a website, whether it's a product demo or support tutorial, being able to use video to make purchase decisions?
If you actually look at the ecosystem today, very few businesses are doing it. And the reason is that the barriers are high. And that's what we're trying to solve at Vimeo. We're trying to really make it easy for any business to use video to communicate externally with potential customers and internally with their employees using professional-quality video. We launched an app called Vimeo Create, and it'll help you make quick social media videos in a couple clicks and in a couple minutes. We use AI, and we provide stock footage and licensed music and creative templates. And you can totally customize it, make your own. But those are the types of ways to lower barriers and make it easier. Otherwise, you're not going to see the kind of mass adoption that we now see with meetings.
Even once people buy into the concept, Sud said, building great video tools is a tricky business. There's a glut of professional tools, from Premiere to Final Cut to Avid, all of which have huge power and huge learning curves. Meanwhile, apps like Snapchat and TikTok are building increasingly functional — but extremely platform-specific — tools into their own services. Vimeo is trying to occupy a middle ground: powerful enough to make interesting stuff, simple enough to be approachable for anyone at a company with a few minutes and an Instagram account.
"There are two categories of users we have," said Vimeo's CTO and chief product officer, Mark Kornfilt. He called the first category "video is my business," referring to longtime Vimeo users who host and share their stuff on the platform. The second category is "video helps my business," which he said, is where Vimeo's biggest market lies: flower shops that want to get people in the store; retailers who want to show off their new stuff; real estate agents who want to shoot fun virtual listings. Video is a means to an end for all those businesses, which means Vimeo needs to get them through a video as quickly as possible.
One of Vimeo's favorite metrics is the time it takes people to create something — even if it's bad — in the app. With a couple of photos and a logo, "before we even show you the editor, we'll show you a video that you've just created," Kornfilt said. "We try to bring the satisfaction of seeing the content as quickly as possible in the process."
Social videos are a particular focus for Vimeo, Sud said, as companies look to leverage the billions of people who use Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn/TikTok /Snapchat/every other social app out there. But most of those companies don't have the resources to build teams or content for every platform, so Vimeo's trying to automate the process.
One thing that we're learning about TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and all these places that people want to be able to do their brand-building, is that they all want totally different things. And it feels like the challenge of being a business right now is that you need a team of 1,000 people just to program all of these different places. Can you roll all of that stuff up into one place inside Vimeo?
We think we can. The way I see it, this again goes to the business model. All of these platforms are ad-based, and so what you're seeing is that each is becoming a walled garden. They want content created just for that platform. And they want to keep the creator and the viewer on the platform, because they literally monetize the eyeballs.
So if there's a battle for eyeballs, we're the Switzerland for the creators. We are neutral, we want to help you put your content everywhere, we actually have tools today that allow you to natively publish with one click from Vimeo to multiple platforms. And we bring the analytics back into one place, so that you can actually understand what's happening. And actually, most social media platforms have been thrilled to partner with us on this, because if we can help more people create video content, that is good for them. So this is an example where I think the SaaS business model allows us to be totally aligned with the success of our customers with the success of a business in a way that social platforms are not able to. And so again, I think it's incumbent upon us to build these tools, if we really want to make it easier for people to use video.
I guess that's true, that for these people getting a lot of TikTok followers is not actually the point of your business. It's a fine means to an end. But that's not what you're here for.
But also you don't have to sacrifice that! We want you to make content — and by the way, we're working on using our API and our data to actually tell you, "Here's a video you just made, we just optimized it for TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Press this button, and each version will go out, and you can see what you want to do with it." We're going to automatically optimize the thumbnails and do X, Y and Z. The real thought here is that right now, the platforms are asking businesses to choose, and you shouldn't have to choose, and we don't want you to have to choose.
Sud said that Vimeo's not trying to out-Zoom Zoom, but it has its eyes on almost every other part of a businesses workflow, from staff events to training videos to virtual yoga classes.
By not caring about being a destination, Vimeo has been able to get a head start on becoming the internet's infrastructure for making video. It has partnerships with GoDaddy, Shopify, MailChimp and others that allow users to use Vimeo's video-making tools from within those other platforms. Sud said: "And it's specifically designed again to just open up the market because the biggest barrier is people just not trying video."
That's what Sud keeps coming back to, the real task in front of her and the entire video industry: convincing everyone that video is actually achievable, a task worth their time and energy that won't take up much of either.
As Vimeo gets ready to strike out on its own and make a name for itself all over again, Sud said she's confident the industry is ready for what Vimeo is selling. (Maybe even sooner than she guessed, thanks to the pandemic.) She likes to compare video right now to websites in the internet's early days. "Today, any restaurant, any mom-and-pop shop can build a website in a matter of clicks. Ten years ago, you would have had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and six months, and have an in-house group of engineers. Now we look back and we think, 'Wow, that's so easy.' And professional quality video should be so easy that anybody can do it," she said. "We just have a lot of work to do to get there."


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NVIDIA’s Earnings Report For Q4 2019 Beats All Expectations
The largest graphics chip manufacturer in the world, NVIDIA, reported better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter of its 2019 fiscal year which led to its shares rising as much as 8 percent, the company announced in a press release on February 14, 2019.
NVIDIA Beats Expectations On The Top And Bottom Lines
Shares of world’s leading chipmaker NVIDIA rose as much as 8 percent on February 14, 2019, after the company reported better-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter of its 2019 fiscal year.
According to a February 14 report from CNBC, earnings for the full fiscal year were “very solid,” with revenue up 21 percent to $11.7 billion, and an overall gross margin of 61.2 percent, up 1.3 percent from 2018.
(Source: NVIDIA News)
However, the company’s revenues were sharply hit by the frigid crypto winter and it faced a year-over-year revenue drop of $706 million, or 24 percent, with fourth-quarter revenues of $2.2 billion. Data from AnandTech showed that NVIDIA’s gross margin fell to 54.7 percent, down more than 7 percent from Q4 2018, while operating income was a down 73 percent to $294 million.
Despite the fact that NVIDIA’s net income was only down 49 percent, coming in at $567 million, it managed to dilute earnings-per-share of $0.92, down 48 percent from 2018.
A Turbulent Close For a Great Year
“This was a turbulent close to what had been a great year,” NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said in the company’s press release. “The combination of post-crypto excess channel inventory and recent deteriorating end-market conditions drove a disappointing quarter.“
NVIDIA’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, said this was the result of the decline in hyperscale and cloud purchases. She said that several of the company’s large customers paused with their purchases at the end of the year, which caused NVIDIA’s sales to decline both sequentially and year-on-year.
However, NVIDIA said it’s expecting $2.20 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2 percent, in the first quarter of its 2020 fiscal year.
According to CNBC, the company believes its revenue for the 2020 fiscal year will be “flat to down slightly,” while analysts polled by Refinitiv were expecting a 7 percent revenue decline for that period.
Last quarter, the company disclosed excess inventory. Then, on January 28, an updated fiscal fourth-quarter guidance was released, showing that gaming and data center revenue was below the company’s expectations. Analysts from Raymond James said that the significant inventory overhand is what affected NVIDIA’s gaming sales.
And while the raging crypto storm caused significant losses for the company, it did come out of the fiscal year in the green. Jim Kelleher, an analyst at Argus Research, told CNBC that NVIDIA’s situation was a “near-perfect storm,” because of higher inventory, the launch of an expensive product and “a one-time runoff in crypto-related inventory.”


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Vodafone UK and the Metropolitan Police have launched the Look Up, Look Out campaign to make more people aware of how to protect themselves against smartphone theft.
Earlier this week, Metropolitan Police officers visited Vodafone’s Oxford Street store to launch the Look Up, Look Out campaign. They handed out information leaflets to passing members of the public, targeting those so engrossed in their smartphones they nearly bumped into our friendly coppers.
And that reinforced the point the Met Police wanted to make.
“People are more likely to be victims of crime if they’re distracted or unaware of their surroundings,” Inspector Ellen Lovatt told Vodafone UK News.
“So people need to be really aware of who’s around them, just by looking up occasionally and being cognizant of their surroundings.”
The Look Up, Look Out campaign was launched at Vodafone’s Oxford Street, Bond Street and Marble Arch stores. Shop staff will inform customers how to protect themselves from smartphone theft, how to use the security features on their phones, and what they should do in the event of a theft.
This includes keeping a record of your smartphone’s IMEI [International Mobile Equipment Identity] number, which is “like your car registration”, explains Inspector Lovatt. “It uniquely identifies your phone. You can easily access this on your keypad by pressing *#06#.
“It’s really important you have a note of this. If we recover your stolen phone, this is the first thing we will look at to try to identify the owner.”
Although worrying about smartphone theft is understandable, Inspector Lovatt was keen to emphasise that people shouldn’t be dissuaded from venturing out into the West End or the rest of London.
Figures from the Crime Survey for England and Wales, compiled by the Office for National Statistics, show that from April 2018 to March 2019, just 0.7% of all mobile phone owners in England and Wales reported a stolen phone to the police.
This compares to the all-time high figure of 1.8% recorded from April 2011 to March 2012.
If your phone is stolen or lost, then we have all the help and advice you need.


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Laura Main Menuratroiconick69c9515391a37d0133f5239e137e0fcd32afa448
outbreak, people were demonstrating
12022-02-10T11:22:31+00:00ratroiconick69c9515391a37d0133f5239e137e0fcd32afa44815251outbreak, people were demonstratingplain2022-02-10T11:22:31+00:00ratroiconick69c9515391a37d0133f5239e137e0fcd32afa448 The 5 Top Ecommerce Startup Categories for 2021
Nasdaq predicted that e-commerce could account for 95% of all sales by 2040. This astonishing market-transition prediction, which was made five years ago, was furtheraccelerated by the Covid-19 epidemic. While health and safety protocols were meant to encourage consumers to return home and shop in shops, the majority of consumers still prefer to shop online. PauseUnmute
The fashions of shopping across different countries differ however, e-commerce offers the possibility of an international market. This can increase the chances of business success, especially if you find a niche among top-performing categories. Oberlo's recent analysis ranked shopping categories according to global revenues. The top five categories: 1. Fashion aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Fashion is the current movers in the world of e-commerce. In fact it is predicted that shoppers will spend around $760 million on online purchases this year. In fact over 25% of all dollars that consumers spend online is on clothing and these figures are predicted to grow. Zalando is a top European online fashion retailer has seen its gross merchandise value increase by 34% in Q2 2020. The market for leisurewear and athletic apparel is predicted to expand at a compound annual rate of 6.7% until 2026. The pandemic led to the closing of many retail stores. People also are spending more. An Experian survey revealed that 11% of people said they spent more on clothes than they did prior to the pandemic, an increase of 5% over the previous year. Another interesting and intriguing fact is that the fashion industry's appeal-customers struggle is now less about creating a brand, and more about providing a memorable customer experience. An online startup can succeed even in a highly competitive market. 2. Toys and hobbies, as well as DIY
Many people turned to hobbies and toys to fill their time. In 2021, over $590.70 million of online spending is anticipated to be generated in this industry. Michaels, North American leader in the field of arts and crafts, announced an growth of 11.1% in sales, along with an increase of 353% in online sales. British Hobbycraft, located in the UK has saw a 20 percent rise in sales online following the pandemic. These trends are not likely to change, even as lockdown conditions become more relaxed and more people understand the importance of diversifying their capabilities and activities, 3. Electronics and media aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa This industry is expected to generate $542.2 trillion in revenues this year. The first quarter of consumers' spending on entertainment at the home increased by 10 percent in May. The largest growth was because of subscription streaming. Notably, this growth doesn't include premium video-on-demand, which Variety described as "an economic and logistical necessity" since movie theater closures.
4. Personal care and food
These up-close-and-personal sales are expected to reach $468.5 billion this year. Many of its products are staple items that need to be replaced on a regular basis, and even before the outbreak, people were demonstrating an interest in paying for quality cosmetics. CNBC conducted a 2017 CNBC analysis on Amazon product growth and discovered that the sales of luxury cosmetics increased by 47% per year. A consequence of spending the more time at home is that people tend to be more attracted to cooking. CNBC's analysis discovered that grocery (38 percent) and the pantry (33%) were the most popular growth areas. A March 2021 consumer survey found that 43% of respondents said they'd like to cook more often at the home. 42% of those who responded to an Experian survey in the same month reported that they spend more on food than they did prior to the pandemic. Whether it's personal care or food, consumables remain a sustainable choice for generating profitable sales.
5. Appliances and furniture
Projections ranks them last of our top five items with $362.90 Billion in estimated sales. CNBC 2017 figures already placed furniture (33%) as one of Amazon's top products growth performers, before the outbreak of the virus. The demand for office spaces in homes is predicted to grow at a compound annual rate of 5% thanks to the increased number of individuals investing in them. It is essential to be more in your home and to invest more money in the spaces. Mintel reports that appliances experienced an 5.5% gain in the year 2020 because of the pandemic. in addition in terms of spending, consumers were prioritizing their homes and willing to spend more money for greater convenience, so an ecommerce business in this category can be an attractive alternative. Since online shopping is becoming our main consumption medium, it will continue to develop. Although selling cars online and other vehicles is an option it will take some time for it to break into the top 5 sellers. These markets are definitely the way of the future. So make use of these markets now to have greater chances of success.


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Today is the day of the release of the Samsung GalaxyS20 series. Here, what you need to know.
The launch event of the new series in the Samsung Flagship will be held on February 11 which is today. Samsung new smartphone really has incredible features and powerful specs. It is confirmed that the company will skip S11-S19 series and go for a S20 series to match with the year. The new reason for the switch is the start of a new decade. The new Samsung series phones is confirmed to have affordable 5G cause the next-inline chipset Snapdragon 865 comes with the 5-G modem compulsory. This will give it new top-tier CPU with the 5-G abilities it needs to Stand-out. We can except a lot of amazing features in the new flagship which we didn’t see in the Samsung Galaxy S10 and other launches. Here, is the list of all stuff and confirmed leaks about the new Samsung S20 or S11 upcoming series.
The three main points of discussion:
Release date: Today, February 11.
Price range: Mostly more than $899/$799/AU$1,349.
What this is all about: The new Galaxy S Smartphone from Samsung which is being unveiled today.
Samsung Galaxy S11 release date and price:
The Samsung Galaxy S11 launch has been fixed for Tuesday,11 February which is today in San Francisco. As the launch date event this time is a bit sooner so we can except to see this in the stores in the first week of March. It looks like the phone accrual sale date is March 6. That came from Max Weinbach, who say the launch date for Samsung S20 will be “first Friday of March”. Samsung confirmed the March 6 date when it began letting people register for a pre-order of Galaxy S20.The page for the pre-order says that those who pre-order will get the phone by March 6. Usually, the pre-order ship at the same time the phone lands in stores.
A tweet from Max Weinbach names five Galaxy S20 models:
- Samsung Galaxy S20
- Samsung Galaxy S20 5G
- Samsung Galaxy S20+
- Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G
- Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G
Weinbach tweeted that the price of S20 range (albeit in euros). If you directly convert the numbers you may end up with $ 1,100 for the S20,$1221 for the S20 plus, and $1443 for the S20 Ultra. He later tweeted the price for the Samsung S20 Ultra is $1330, which is close but a bit cheaper than the price tweeted before.
If you want a little extra gift you can get a pre-order deal with Samsung S20 or S20 Ultra which gets fair pair of Galaxy Buds Plus.
Samsung Galaxy S20 name
The new Samsung Galaxy phone will be called Samsung Galaxy S20 because it is coming this year and the company wants the phone name to match with years.
Possibly, the Samsung CEO reported that we could get Samsung S20, Samsung S20e, Samsung S20 plus instead of S11, S11e, S11 Plus.
It is confirmed that the Galaxy S line might be not continued and S11 phone might never see the light of the day. Samsung Galaxy S11 and the Galaxy series will merge in a single phone, a new series that will have all the premium features of Samsung in a single phone.
The display and Camera in the upcoming flagships:
The 120 Hz display
All the new phones in the Samsung flagship will be larger than the Galaxy S10 lineup at 5.1,6.1 and 6.4 inches. As for the resolution, S20 versions will have a resolution of 3200* 1400. That works on Quad HD display with an aspect ratio of 20:9 meaning all the phones will be narrow and tall despite the size. XDA’s developers story claims that the display Glass of the S20 +5G is remarkably flat as compared to other 5G phones in the new line-up.
Now talking of the cameras features in the new flagship that we might except
According to XDA developers, the Samsung Camera app code will have 108 megapixels photo mode which could be a big feature . The breakdown revealed 8k video support confirmed by an inside source. A report out of Korea seemingly confirms variants of S20 getting a camera of 5X optical zoom.
Battery life :
As per the rumors Samsung S20 will come with a 4800mAh as per the photo which is shared by some South Korea certification company. If this happens the batter life of the Samsung S11 will same as Samsung S10 plus. Samsung is working on battery health feature as per some sources. This feature would tell how worn out your S11’s battery is.
Some rumor suggest that the Samsung S11e will have a larger battery life than Samsung Galaxy S10e, though this could refer to the Samsung S20 as per new naming rumors. Samsung S11 Plus will have 5400mAh battery life, which would be the biggest used in Samsung Galaxy devices as per leaks. We for sure now the S20 comes with a packed with a 45W charging.
Specs and features in the new Samsung flagship:
It is pretty certain that Samsung S20 will come with Snapdragon 865 chipset launched in the late 2019.
According to some leaks Samsung Galaxy S20 devices will have a base of 12 GB RAM, though that can go up to 16 GB or beyond.
Some rumors are suggesting that Samsung S20 Ultra will have 128 GB/256GB/512 GB storage options with a slot for a microSD card that would another 1TB space. Samsung S11 would not have a headphone port because Samsung had removed that from its latest note. Plus, it also might not have a Bixby button.
A very unlikely feature is that the Samsung S11 is packed up with the Spectrometer, which could be used to determine Chemical composition of the objects. The company has launched a patented phone like device with just such a feature, so it is confirmed that Samsung S20 might have it.
Samsung could make a battery thicker and /or body thinner by freeing up space that would have been used for headphone port. It is confirmed Samsung Galaxy can have a in-screen fingerprint sensor as per the news that the latest Samsung Galaxy could se facial recognition like iPhone 11 and Google Pixel4.
This is more secure form of locking than Samsung current photo based facial recognition but, it is slower than using a fingerprint.


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'Yooka-Laylee,' spiritual successor to 'Banjo-Kazooie,' hits Kickstarter goal
- Video Games
The Banjo-Kazooie franchise saw two major releases back in the days of the Nintendo 64 and one title on the Xbox 360 that put a vehicular spin on the franchise. But otherwise, the lovable bear-and-bird duo’s original platforming spirit has long remained dormant.
But now, creators of those original games are debuting a spiritual successor, and it looks like fans are rabid for a new take on the classic gameplay.
Yooka-Laylee, many details of which were unveiled on IGN earlier this week, took to Kickstarter today for funding and has already met its goal. The game is extremely reminiscent of Banjo-Kazooie, including its titular duo (and even their logo design), as well as the gameplay style shown off in the early screenshots and footage.
The Playtonic team is made up of developers behing Banjo as well as the Donkey Kong Country games, who have launched their own studio to develop this game.
Banjo-Kazooie debuted at a time when 3D platformers like Super Mario 64 and Donkey Kong 64 ruled the market, but the likes of these games have largely fallen out of fashion in recent years. Playtonic Games is hoping to show there’s still room out their for an adorable but exciting platformer. And fans seem to agree: In its first day, the Kickstarter hit its initial funding goal, and will have 46 more days online to rack up funding.
Because it hit funding, the game will come to Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U, though Playtonic says actual timing for each platform will depend on the total Kickstarter backing.
Watch a preview of the game below and see more images from the game on IGN.


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Tyson Foods Inc
Tyson Chief Financial Officer Dennis Leatherby, in a webcast presentation at a J.P. Morgan investment conference in Miami, said the company had found other export markets as well as domestic uses for the meat.
Russia, once the largest export market for U.S. chicken, has reduced imports in order to build its own industry.
It also banned U.S. chicken in January because of a chlorine wash used in the United States to kill bacteria, but negotiators are working to reopen that market.
It is more costly to use the other methods, but we are certainly willing to do that, if the Russians are, Leatherby said of the chlorine wash.
During a question and answer session, Leatherby said Tyson was focused on reinvesting in the business and improving its debt rating to investment grade rather than buy back shares.
Share buybacks would be our lowest priority by far, he said in response to a question. Acquisitions would be considered, but they would pretty much have to fall in our lap at pretty reasonable prices, he said.
Tyson is focusing on integrating recent acquisitions in China and Brazil in 2010, he added.
Leatherby said Tyson's joint-venture with Syntroleum Corp
(Reporting by Bob Burgdorfer; Editing by Ted Kerr)


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On December 8, 2017 the Ukrainian Association of the Gaming Industry (UGIA) organized the first international conference Ukrainian Gaming Summit 2017.
The conference was devoted to the responsible legalization of the gaming in Ukraine: how to make this business transparent and accountable to the society, beneficial for the state and investors.
Iryna Sergienko, the President of the UGIA, emphasized that Ukraine needs to follow the experience of the EU countries in regulating the gaming business on the basis of the principle of social responsibility.
“Legalization will put the game business under effective government control. This is a necessary condition for preventing the most dangerous outputs of the gaming for vulnerable players, whose interests are now ignored. Taking the gaming business out from the shadow will lead to a significant increase in revenues of the state budget, the attraction of foreign investors in Ukraine, the creation of thousands of new jobs. Moreover, the gaming business allows to accumulate funds to finance sports, culture and socially important projects”, Iryna Sergienko mentioned.
The members of the Ukrainian Parliament and the executive authorities who participated at the Summit recognized the need for legalization of the gaming industry and called up business and experts to get together for finalizing current drafts of laws or create new ones with their further adoption by the Ukrainian Parliament. Moreover, legalization of the gaming industry is mentioned as the obligation in the Memorandum signed with the International Monetary Fund.
At the panel discussions of the Summit, international speakers shared their experience of regulation of the gaming business in Europe and with the help of statistical data demonstrated the economic and social advantages of gaming business legalization. In particular, lawyers from Great Britain and Bulgaria demonstrated specific instruments used in their countries that allow to regulate the gaming industry with the benefits for business and the state, with keeping the interests of society.
Speakers also emphasized the importance of timely unification of the legislation with the perspective towards future optimal integration and prevention from the monopolization of the market.
Psychologists and sociologists focused on the fact that the scale of gambling addiction and social tension will tend to increase without the legalization of the gaming business. And the delayed reputational and social consequences will be much harder to eliminate the longer the gaming is not under government control. The participants of the conference announced their intention to collaborate with the authorities and members of the Parliament and interested parties towards the adoption of the necessary legislation in 2018.
One of the major steps was already made by the potential local Ukrainian investors – a creation of the Coordination Council of the interested parties and experts (supported of UGIA) on responsible legalization of the casino business.
Events Coordinator and PR Manager
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US stocks opened Friday as investors braced for a turbulent trading weekend marked by mixed retail earnings and a chorus of hawkish Fedspeak.
The S&P 500 (^GSPC) rose 0.8%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI) added 250 points, or 0.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) rose 0.9%. Treasury yields continued to rise, with the benchmark 10-year note returning above 3.8% and the rate-sensitive 2-year yield heading towards 4.5%.
A meeting of Fed officials on Thursday pushed back against speculation that a pause in monetary tightening is near. The remarks in separate talks across the country weighed on stocks and bonds after huge gains driven by lighter inflation data.
Inflation has only recently shown signs of moderating, and consumer and producer price data are still very high despite having picked up in October. Meanwhile, US retail sales rose at the fastest clip in eight months over the same period, prompting policymakers to hammer home tough messages about the work still to be done to reduce rising costs.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said in a webcast of Minnesota Chamber of Commerce events that how much policymakers expect to raise the key federal funds rate remains an “open question.” His comments came after St. Louis Fed President James Bullard and San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said the central bank is looking at a terminal rate of up to 5.25%.
“Fed Chairman Powell recalibrated monetary policy at the November FOMC meeting by adopting a new ‘speed vs. destination’ paradigm – signaling his intention to push the terminal-fed funds rate higher while done at a slower pace,” EY Parthenon Chief Economist Gregory Daco said in a note. “The challenge for the Fed will be to prevent excessive and counterproductive easing of financial conditions in the face of weaker-than-expected inflation.”
Goldman Sachs Group on Thursday also raised its forecast for the Federal Reserve’s terminal rate to a range of 5% to 5.25%, heading for another 25-basis-point hike in May after increases of that magnitude in February and March. and half a percentage point. in December.
“Inflation is likely to remain too high for a while, and this could put pressure on the FOMC to deliver a longer series of small increases next year,” economists led by Jan Hatzius also said.
In the shadow of renewed rate hikes, Gap (GPS), Ross Stores (ROST), and Williams-Sonoma (WSM) finished a busy week of retail earnings.
Gap Shares jumped 9% Friday morning after the company revealed results that beat Wall Street estimates. Chief Financial Officer Katrina O’Connell, however, emphasized that the macroeconomic environment remains challenging, but that Gap will take a “prudent approach in light of the uncertain consumer”.
Shares of Ross Stores rallied 16% after the retail chain beat earnings forecasts and raised its fourth-quarter guidance, citing sales momentum and improved assortments for the holidays.
Meanwhile, shares of home furnishings retailer Williams Sonoma sank nearly 9% after it pulled its guidance through 2024 due to “macro uncertainty.”
Alexandra Semenova is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter @alexandraandnyc
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Veggies, Pulses Drag Inflation to Record Low of 2.18% in May
Retail inflation fell to a record low of 2.18 per cent in May as prices of kitchen staples like vegetables and pulses declined sharply although there was a marginal spike in fruit rates.
In this file photo, a vendor waits for customers at his vegetable stall at a wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Mumbai. (Photo: Reuters/Shailesh Andrade)
New Delhi: Retail inflation fell to a record low of 2.18 per cent in May as prices of kitchen staples like vegetables and pulses declined sharply although there was a marginal spike in fruit rates.
Clothing, housing, fuel and light also saw lower inflation.
Retail inflation dropped to an all time low of 2.18 percent in May.
The CPI based retail inflation stood was at 2.99 percent in April 2017. In May 2016, it was at 5.76 percent. The overall food inflation was in negative territory at (-) 1.05 percent during the month.
Prices of vegetables declined by 13.44 percent and that of pulses and products by 19.45 percent.
Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank had maintained status quo on key lending rate (repo) citing risks to inflation.
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This past week we have seen Tumblr make a number of changes to its mobile offering. Just a couple of days back it announced that ads will now be displayed in Tumblr’s mobile apps. Yesterday the first ever Tumblr app for Windows Phone 8 was released and today their updated iOS app is available for download from iTunes App Store. The update brings a couple of new social features, users can now share directly to Facebook or Twitter from straight within the app. This is a really important feature as users tend to share their content on two of the most widely used online social networks, having the ability to do that straight from the app will no doubt save a lot of time and hassle.
If someone doesn’t want to view Tumblr posts in its app, it now has support for Instapaper and Pocket, which allows for convenient reading on different devices. The app update also brings a new template for email sharing. Tumblr for iOS version 3.3.1 is now online and can be downloaded for free right away from iTunes App Store.


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Apple has announced that it would soon start selling Apple Watch Hermes standalone bands in new colours. Previously, users would have to buy the Watch and the Fauve (Brown) band together from the Apple Store.
Buyers will soon be able to buy Double Tour, Single Tour, and Cuff bands in Fauve (Brown), Feu (Red), Blanc (White), Bleu Paon (Green), and Bleu Saphir (Blue) colour variants. These bands will be available starting April 19.
On the company site, Apple details the standalone bands, which are listed under the ‘Coming Soon’ tag, saying, “Match the look of your Apple Watch to any outfit with an additional Hermes leather band. Available in three designs and multiple colors, these easily interchangeable bands quickly update your signature style.”
While Apple has not yet listed prices for the standalone Hermes bands, A Blog to Watch has listedprices starting from $340 (roughly Rs. 22,600) for the Single Tour, $490 (roughly Rs. 32,600) for Double Tour, and $690 (roughly Rs. 45,900) for the Cuff.
Last month Apple launched new Watch sport Bands and Leather Bands in new colours. Also unveiled were Woven Nylon bands that feature a four-layer construction. They are priced at $49 (roughly Rs. 3,200). Apple also introduced a Space-Black Milanese loop, which is priced at $199 (roughly Rs. 13, 240) – or $50 (roughly Rs. 3,320) more than the Silver Milanese loop.
The Cupertino-based tech company recently also introduced a new tool, essentially an interactive gallery, that lets interested buyers view how a particular model will look with different straps. This new tool lets users mix and match different Apple Watch models with a range of straps and watch faces, helping them to decide the final combination.
Download the Gadgets 360 app for Android and iOS to stay up to date with the latest tech news, product reviews, and exclusive deals on the popular mobiles.
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Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) announced a set of initiatives to maintain its financial flexibility amid the prevailing uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. These steps include the suspension of its dividend, withdrawal of its guidance and utilising its entire credit facility.
The company plans to borrow $13.4 billion under its corporate credit facility and $2 billion under its supplemental credit facility, bringing the total to $15.4 billion, which will be used to offset the temporary impacts from production stoppages and to maintain financial flexibility. At the end of 2019, Ford had $22 billion in cash and $35 billion in liquidity.
Ford suspended its dividend and withdrew its FY2020 guidance given at the time of its fourth quarter 2019 earnings announcement. The company had guided for adjusted EPS of $0.94 to $1.20 at the time. Ford now plans to give an update on the full-year guidance in April when it reports its first quarter 2020 earnings results.
Ford also decided to stop production at its plants in North America and Europe for the time being due to the COVID-19 crisis.
The company, along with its US dealers, is also offering payment relief for six months to its new-car buyers. Ford has offered to pay for three months and allow payment deferrals for three more months for customers who buy its 2019 and 2020 model-year vehicles.
Ford’s shares were down over 5% in midday trade on Thursday. The stock has dropped 47% over the past one month.
The recent optimism about economic recovery waned slightly this week after jobless claims increased more-than-expected to about 778,000 amid concerns over a resurgence in coronavirus cases. With the healthcare system
Yunji Inc. (NASDAQ: YJ) Q3 2020 earnings call dated Nov. 26, 2020 Corporate Participants: Kaye Liu -- Investor Relations Director Shanglue Xiao -- Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer Chen
Amazon Web Services (AWS), a leading cloud computing platform, went down in the morning hours of Wednesday. Many applications – including Anchor, Adobe Spark, Flickr, SiriusXM and Roku reported disruption


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Health officials seize Chinese products from supermarket
Authorities from the National Animal Health Service (SENASA) confiscated animal-based products at a supermarket Tuesday. Products seized included mackerel, sardines, Chinese sausage, smoked pork, smoked duck, eggs, and canned eel, according to the daily La Nacíon.
The sweep followed complaints of irregularities at the store. Authorities would not comment on the supermarket’s name or location. They said that the business’ owner was unable to provide documents about the products’ importation, according to a release from SENASA on Tuesday morning.
Other irregularities included a lack of labeling in Spanish, obscured expiration dates and lack of registration with the Health Ministry.
The packaging of some canned goods, including mackerel and pork, were rusty.
SENASA warned that these products contain a high sanitary risk and could transmit diseases such foot and mouth disease and avian influenza.
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Did you sign up to purchase a OnePlus One? If so, better check your email after you read this. The company has started sending out their first wave of invites to purchase, along with a special URL to prevent fraud.
With removable batteries not available for every phone, it’s often a wise choice to have a back-up battery pack on hand. NO matter what your needs, TYLT’s lineup has you covered. Even if you’re OS agnostic, some TYLT
Aereo, the popular cord-cutters option for accessing live TV, is now available on Chromecast. The company announced their service was coming for Chromecast earlier in the year, and has activated the streaming capability in their
Google has just announced their Project Tango 3D imaging smartphone will get a big brother. Moving from experiment to development kit, the Project Tango tablet will be available to a select audience later this year. A sign-up
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HTC is releasing a smartwatch, that much we know. Their CEO has committed to it, and they’ve long said wearables are important to their future. A small Taiwanese blog has reportedly had a hands-on with the device, claiming


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The intellectual super-tweeter Alain de Botton gave himself two days before responding with a link to a whole essay, “Alain de Botton onTsunamis and Stoicism”, whose message did not, it’s hoped, come too late to comfort both Peaches Geldof and any Japanese survivors who chanced to find it. “By turning back to the wisdom of the stoic philosophers, we may find a way of tempering some of our expectations and dampening our shock at disasters and bloodshed,” de Botton argued, recalling the suicide of noble Seneca. “As he calmly took the knife to his veins, he remarked – in a sentence we may be wise to repeat to ourselves as we read the news on certain particularly sad mornings – ‘What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.'”
And we need only recall Peaches on the variable price of Lucozade to recognise the persuasiveness of that.
Happily, since Twitter does not always lend itself to learned exchanges, people who turned to Thought for the Day for guidance would have been aware that there exist more cheerful reactions to the prospect of overwhelming tragedy and chaos. On Monday, Indarjit Singh recommended that, since God – or his God anyway – could not be expected to tinker with natural laws He had made earlier, mortals should console themselves with the well-known doggerel by Adam Gordon, concluding: “But two things stand out like stone/ Kindness in another’s troubles; courage in your own.” This, as some commentators testified, can be easier said than done. Singh’s fellow Thinker for the Day (retd), Christina Odone, has established, following repeated viewings of the tsunami, that: “We are all disaster junkies.” And the reason? “It’s been a really tough year, during which we – and not just my family – have felt squeezed by the recession and worried about our future finances. Self-pity is not only boring, it is debilitating, so it is with a huge relief that we have discovered that there is a whole nation who is far worse off.”
Also analysing his feelings upon watching the tsunami on television (in the County Hotel, Chelmsford) was the TLS editor Sir Peter Stothard. “The last house I ever owned in Essex was beyond the flood defences,” he reflected, in a knightly style that 50 Cent might do well to emulate. “So somehow the first pictures seemed reasonable – even appropriate – for an Essex boy returning home. It would be good to see them again. No scene of destruction can match a moving wave and a line of drivers with no sense that something bad is five fields away.”
For some western spectators, however, it has proved impossible to watch the disaster unfold in the same, stoical spirit. What all these philosophers are forgetting is: what will happen to BAGS? And SHOES? De Botton, for all his wisdom, knows sod all about running a Burberry franchise in Osaka. Directly after the earthquake struck, well before the nuclear threat to high-end accessories also emerged, the luxury index had fallen by more than 4%, the reaction summarised in headlines such as “Japan’s Earthquake Sends a Shockwave Through the Luxury Goods Business”. Burberry, with 7% of its sales in Japan, duly lost 6% of its value.
No wonder Anya Hindmarch, the luxury goods magnate, Cameron trade ambassador and proprietress of 22 shops in Japan, promptly added the message: “To all our friends in Japan, we are thinking of you! x”, beneath the words: “Shop now” on her internet store.
As recently as 10 March, luxury shares were still on the rise and insouciant bag-mongers such as Coach and LVMH had had nothing better to do than squabble over the spoils in a country where, even with China’s advancing army of Veblen goods fanciers, consumers still spend more on luxury tat than anyone else in the world and have done so since Japanese customers created the market in the 80s. Out of Japanese women over 20, almost half own a Louis Vuitton handbag, an enthusiasm for this form of conspicuous consumption thought to be related to population density and limited chances for display.
But the fever spread. Were it not for Japan, more British women might still think it mad or repugnant for mid-market fashion writers to urge investment in a Hindmarch Keaton (£1,195) or Samantha Cameron‘s Cooper Tote (£1,200) or Jimmy Choo sandals (£415) by fellow ambassador Tamara Mellon. Now there are fears the opposite could happen if, as one analyst puts it: “The nuclear accident burdened the general global mood.” Given the critical status of luxury goods among Cameron’s favourites, one of whom, Gabby Bertin, was recently spotted clinging to a Birkin as a pair of Christian Louboutins collapsed – prophetically? – beneath her, it must have been hard to stay stoical in Downing Street.
Riots in the Middle East already threatened luxury: Christian Dior told theInternational Herald Tribune‘s Suzy Menkes: “What we like is stability.” Japan makes it so much worse. At our very own bank, RBS, we find a luxury expert diagnosing an extremity of Japanese suffering that even a new spring tote cannot assuage: “Periods of mourning and a broken infrastructure are not conducive to luxury goods spending or an increased appetite to travel.” And yet, say the optimists, look at recovery after Kobe: bet on Burberry. If he is to keep his keenly contested place atop the list of grotesquely inappropriate responses, 50 Cent might begin by studying the financial pages.


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Christmas Day is still months away, but we may already be in the peak of holiday shopping season. With the challenging economy, Americans are keen to find deals this holiday season, and to do that they’re getting started early. And retailers are taking note. Amazon has expanded its popular Prime Day to a second sales event, the Prime Early Access Sale on October 11-12. Walmart has countered with their own sales event, “Rollbacks and More” October 10-13. Meanwhile, Costco began selling Christmas decor and gifts back in the peak of summer.
To understand more about consumer behaviors around holiday shopping, retail preferences and more, Near Research surveyed over 600 U.S. consumers and 500 Australian consumers. We will be including the full results in our upcoming report, The New World of Consumer Behavior: Retail 2022. Here’s a sneak peek at the results from the U.S.
Most shoppers are starting before Black Friday, but that weekend is still relevant:
Shoppers are planning to get an early start – 66% of shoppers planned to start holiday shopping before Black Friday, and over a third (34%) plan to start shopping before the start of November.
- Black Friday still marks a major milestone for 42% of respondents who confirmed they’re planning to do holiday shopping over the Black Friday weekend, with another 28% who weren’t sure yet.
- Notably, Black Friday isn’t as popular in the U.S. as it is in Australia, where a majority of shoppers (52%) are planning to shop around Black Friday.
U.S. consumers are embracing omnichannel shopping behaviors:
The responses showed that U.S. consumers are regularly shopping both online and in-store, and frequently make a purchase with a combination of online & in-store research & purchasing.
- Respondents reported shopping online an average of 4.9 times in the past month, and shopping in stores 4.7 times in the past month.
- Half of respondents (50%) said that they have used a combination of online and in-store shopping for a single purchase (either finding a product in-store and buying online, or researching online then buying in-store)
- The top shopping behavior was shopping & buying online, followed by in-store:
Americans are wary of the economy, but are planning to hold spend steady this holiday season:
While the economy is definitely weighing on the minds of most Americans, they are still planning to spend roughly the same as last year on average. They are also on the lookout for deals.
- 25% of respondents say they plan to spend more this holiday season than last year, while 51% plan to spend the same amount. 24% plan to spend less than last year.
- However, 84% said they are factoring the state of the economy into their shopping plans, with 51% saying the economy is affecting their plans a little, and 33% saying it’s affecting their plans a lot.
- 94% of shoppers say they’re taking steps to find bargains. The top approaches to finding deals are:
Big Box stores will get big business for holiday shopping:
Respondents ranked Big Box stores, like Target and Walmart, as their top place to do their holiday shopping. Warehouse Stores, Department Stores, Shopping Malls and Clothing Stores were also popular choices for shoppers. Despite 44% of respondents saying they’re planning to shop at bargain retailers to save money this year, Discount Stores were less favored for holiday shopping (22%).
Categories of stores where people are planning to do their holiday shopping:
Big Box Stores
(e.g. Costco, Sam's Club)
(e.g. cosmetics, books)
(e.g. Macy's, JCPenney)
(e.g. Gap, American Eagle, Zara)
(e.g. Dollar General, The Dollar Tree)
To ensure a strong holiday shopping season, retailers should be taking some key steps now:
- Prepare for shoppers to start early. With more than a third of U.S. consumers starting holiday shopping before November 1, now is the time to increase supply and staffing, as well as offer bargains.
- Deliver a cohesive shopping experience across in-store and digital platforms. With half of shoppers saying they’re using omnichannel approaches, such as researching online and buying in-store, it’s critical to make that experience seamless.
- Offer Black Friday bargains. With 42% of respondents eager to shop and find deals over Black Friday to Cyber Monday, retailers should look to lure shoppers in with enticing offers.
- Use data to deeply understand consumers and how to market to them.
With so many factors influencing consumer behavior, it’s critical to turn to data to understand their behavior in real-time. With human movement data, you can not only track these trends, but leverage data to maximize marketing spend through bespoke audience targeting, in-store footfall tracking, location-based targeting, and more.
Survey conducted August 17-22, 2022 with 634 in the United States and 509 respondents in Australia, Census-weighted by age, gender, income and region.


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Ferrari's restaurant reopens with Massimo Bottura's recipes
Excellent news for food and Ferrari lovers
Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura will revamp the 'Il Cavallino' restaurant in Maranello, where Ferrari founder Enzo used to dine with friends and F1 drivers.
First opened in 1942, Ferrari themselves decided to relaunch the restaurant, which has been closed since 2019, because they're determined to up the ante and offer Ferrari customers and lovers a 360-degree experience with the Prancing Horse.
Bottura, head chef of Osteria Francescana in Modena (voted the 'World's Best Restaurant' in 2016 and 2018) says he wants to bring, "the best of the past into the future, to renew tradition, in a critical way, not in a nostalgic one".
The restaurant was designed by Iranian-French architect India Mahdavi and it is, as you'd expect, adorned with Ferrari memorabilia including F1-themed installations and artwork. There's an entire room dedicated to Enzo Ferrari and there's also a beautiful outdoor patio. The menu is 100% inspired by the very same region that gave birth to Enzo and Ferrari, Emilia-Romagna, with traditional local dishes such as tortellini and Parmigiano Reggiano-based treats.
There's more good news because Bottura wants to make it plain that the restaurant wasn't designed just with wealthy Ferrari owners in mind. Prices will be more affordable than they would normally be for similar haute-cuisine locations, because the Cavallino also plans to welcome food lovers and the 'Tifosi'.
"It's the essence of a restaurant, we have to take care of people, of travellers," Bottura said. "[We have to care of] people who want to spend some time in a restaurant and enjoy".


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Honda dresses up Civic for Indy
Honda Australia will today launch a limited edition Civic Hatch with alloy wheels, body kit andother added features as part of 2001 Honda Indy 300 celebrations.
Honda Australia will today launch a limited edition Civic Hatch with alloy wheels, body kit and other added features as part of 2001 Honda Indy 300 celebrations. As part of the Indy deal, Honda says it's offering bonus 15-inch alloy wheels, full body kit including front and rear spoiler and side skirts, fog lights, chrome exhaust finisher and Indy decal valued at more than $3,000. The Honda Civic Indy will be available in "taffeta white", "milano red" and, here's a mouthful, "nighthawk black pearl" and with either manual or automatic transmission. Prices begin at $27,950 for the manual. The Civic Indy has electric power steering, remote central locking, air-conditioning, power windows and mirrors, dual airbags and halogen headlamps as standard equipment and features a 96kW 1.7-litre VTEC LEV engine. The Honda Civic Indy is on sale until November 15 or while stocks last, alongside the Civic GLi Sedan and Civic Vi Hatch at Hondas 90 dealerships across Australia. Meanwhile, Honda is continuing its drive-away deal on CR-V and CR-V Sport as part of an end-of-model runout. The deal includes free registration, third party insurance, stamp duty and dealer delivery charges. Pricing begins at $31,990 for the CR-V manual.


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Microsoft has conducted a PC purchasing probe and examined a total of 166 new PCs from nine Asian markets, including India, Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam, and has found that four in five, which is approximately 83 percent, brand new PCs in these targeted countries are loaded with pirated software which makes these machines a fertile ground for Cybercriminals to exploit. The PC samples selected were purchased from retailers that offered computers at much lower prices, bundled with free software to lure customers. In several cases, these retailers also sold pirated software at their stores.
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FreeMarkets (Nasdaq: FMKT) pickedup 22 U.S. cents to $11.36 in morning trading Monday following news thatdrugmaker Schering-Plough (NYSE: SGP) has signed on to continue using the company’s online marketplace to buy and sell goods and services.
FreeMarkets said Schering-Plough executed a new two-year agreement touse FreeMarkets’ B2B Global Marketplace. The drug company will “source avariety of goods and services” over the Internet for another two years,FreeMarkets said.
“Schering-Plough has been using FreeMarkets as part of its strategicsourcing and e-commerce initiatives since June 2000,” said Jason Reneau, director and generalmanager of FreeMarkets’ consumer goods business.
Schering-Plough, based in Kenilworth, New Jersey, is involved in the manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical products worldwide.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based FreeMarkets says it has created more than11,500 online marketplaces for more than $16.6 billion worth of goods. The company says more than 11,100 suppliers worldwide participate in its B2BGlobal Marketplace. FreeMarkets also operates an online exchange for surplusassets and inventory.
Last month, the company reported a 205percent year-over-year revenue surge, along with a narrower loss.
The revenue gain was “slightly short” of expectations because of a weakeconomy, FreeMarkets said. The company also lowered its outlook forfull-year revenue, though it maintained its loss forecasts for the secondquarter and the year as a whole.
The news led analysts at three securities firms to downgrade FreeMarkets shares.
FreeMarkets said it aims to break even on an operating basis in the first quarter of 2002.


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The men of WBAL Radio might never be confused for fashion plates, but we do occasionally like to make our own fashion statements.
Last month, WBAL's Scott Wykoff made a very bold fashion statement when he was one of the models at a celebrity fashion show. It raised thousands of dollars for Pathfinders for Autism.As for me the arrival of bitter cold weather means the return of what my colleagues call the "Rabbi Hat." This black hat was a Hanukkah gift a few years ago from my brother-in-law and his family. It keeps my head warm and I'm told looks pretty good. One of my WBAL-TV colleagues says when I wear this hat it makes me look like disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
I think I have had a better year than Abramoff has had.
Other items that make fashion statement include the WBAL winter coat, and the WBAL ski hat. These also appear stylish and do a good job of keeping you warm.
The fashion statements are not limited to the news department. Don Koenig works in WBAL's traffic department. It is the department that schedules commercials. Don is making a big statement against casual Friday. On Fridays in the winter, he has started to wear a black velvet suit. Don believes we should dress formally every day of the year. He is also like George Costanza of "Seinfeld" who believed that if it is socially acceptable, he would drape himself in velvet.
Even some of our guests like to make fashion statements. This gentleman from the Maryland Lottery was seen in our hallway this morning.
There are many other fashion statements made each and every day here at WBAL.
As my wife's favorite fashion guru Tim Gunn likes to say, when it comes fashion we here at WBAL like to "make it work."


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Total 77 Posts
Recently, China's Ministry of Commerce published a notice stating that it would begin an expiry review of the anti-dumping measures on potato starch imported from the European Union.
The European solar manufacturing industry is pushing for relief from competition with Chinese producers, and European policymakers are discussing a response. This debate recalls a similar one from around ten years ago.
Last Friday, in response to a petition by the domestic industry, China's Ministry of Commerce announced the launch of an anti-dumping investigation on brandy from the EU. A few details of the petition are summarized below.
The 24th EU-China summit took place on December 7 in Beijing. Charles Michel (President of the European Council) and Ursula von der Leyen (President of the European Commission), accompanied by High Representative Josep Borrell, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang at two separate sessions.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in a recent interview that "most of the economic pressure measures [from Beijing] against Lithuania have been lifted." A deeper dive into its trade data with China indicates that while there has been a partial recovery from the trade disruptions of last
A spokesperson from China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) criticized EU practices in the countervailing investigation on electric vehicles (EVs) from China. The spokesperson also talked about the status of Micron in China and China's outbound investment over the first ten months.


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Existing apps will be promoted in track 1 of the App Innovation Challenge and track 2 will focus on development of new apps.
For Huawei and ZTE, it is business as usual since they have not at all been impacted by the recent government action against Chinese mobile apps, sources said.
Oppo and Vivo in fact are yet to register for India’s ambitious production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for manufacturing
Bytedance had voluntarily taken down its apps TikTok and Helo from Google's Play Store and Apple's App Store and later pulled the plug on the short video app TikTok on Tuesday
The Indian government said its decision was based on close to 300 documents and reports seeking a ban on the Chinese apps, claiming that they were compromising user data.
Chinese app stars may have bigger following, but YouTube and Instagram influencers earn about three times more
A closer look at today's biggest tech and startup news and why they matter
Ban on Chinese apps is a great opportunity to build and promote ‘Made-in-India’ apps, says IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad
Our creator managers are actively engaging with our top creators to reassure them of our efforts and updates about the path forward, said Tiktok CEO Kevin Mayer
Amid government scrutiny over its various trade practices, the firm has been able to hold on to a set of consumers looking for cheaper goods
A key worry for Chinese tech giants is that India's move could set a global precedent, said experts tracking the digital economy.
The government has increased a nationwide alert and stepped up monitoring as intelligence agencies prepare for intensified cybersecurity attacks from China.
The committee, which is likely to meet on Wednesday, will conduct a detailed inquiry into the data-sharing practices of these apps, including top social media platforms TikTok, Helo and WeChat.
DoT is preparing a separate list of sites that could be barred in the future, according to people familiar with the developments.
The venture capital and individual investors exploring exits currently own about 4-5% in Indian companies, with some holding less than 2%.
E-commerce websites have been seeing an increased number of attacks over the past few months
Startup entrepreneurs termed this decision as an opportunity for domestic companies to step in and fill the gaps that are expected to be created with this unprecedented move.


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‘The Godfather’ Series Is Coming to a New Paramount+ Streaming Service
ViacomCBS has announced its plans to rebrand its streaming service CBS All Access as Paramount+. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the name change is due for early 2021, during which the streamer will release a series of originals based on popular franchises such as The Godfather, Criminal Minds, and SpongeBob SquarePants.
In the meantime, ViacomCBS has been bolstering CBS All Access with programming from Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central, and MTV. You'll also find more Paramount movies hitting the platform before the official switch. The company's goal is to eventually have a movie and television library of 30,000 titles.
Among the new series coming to Paramount Plus is The Offer, a scripted limited series about Al Ruddy’s experience producing The Godfather. The popular CBS procedural Criminal Minds is being reimagined into a true crime series titled The Real Criminal Minds. For music fans, there will be an updated version of MTV’s Behind the Music. And for the kids, Paramount Plus will offer the SpongeBob SquarePants spinoff Kamp Koral.
"Paramount is an iconic and storied brand beloved by consumers all over the world, and it is synonymous with quality, integrity and world-class storytelling,” said CEO Bob Bakish in a statement. "With Paramount+, we’re excited to establish one global streaming brand in the broad-pay segment that will draw on the sheer breadth and depth of the ViacomCBS portfolio to offer an extraordinary collection of content for everyone to enjoy.”
As the fates of major movie releases remain uncertain, it appears that Viacom CBS is throwing more of its chips into the streaming game. In a few years, Paramount might be more synonymous with “streaming giant” than “movie studio.”
Gallery — The Best Show to Binge-Watch on Every Streaming Service:


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FRANKLIN, Tenn. — For MAPCO, the operator of 340-plus company-owned convenience stores in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi, innovation means being a pioneer on all fronts of the convenience store business model — not just meeting expectations, but exceeding them. This has been especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Generating new ideas in the industry comes from listening to your guests, team members and other thought leaders in the convenience store space to provide solutions to everyday problems,” said MAPCO CEO Frederic Chaveyriat. “For many communities, convenience stores are an integral aspect of daily life and that’s why they were deemed essential businesses.”
Pre-COVID, MAPCO found itself in a unique position: some of its newest innovations, including a newly redesigned app with touchless payment options and a DoorDash delivery partnership, were set to launch during this timeframe. However, the retailer knew it had to go back to the drawing board to make sure all of its guests had access to crucial products like food, water and fuel — and that’s where MAPCO’s Full Service+ offering was born.
“During the height of the pandemic, we built a touchless fueling model at 14-plus locations across four different states and rolled out a curbside service at one of our stores in Clarksville, Tenn,” Chaveyriat said. “This offering was launched in tandem with our stringent cleaning protocols, disinfecting process and COVID-19 safety precautions.”
Continuously evaluating the pandemic, MAPCO has since decided to suspend the Full Service+ program to focus its efforts on more long-term touchless offerings. To that end, the chain is finalizing its brand-new Scan N’ Go and Order Ahead services, which will be available via the retailer’s mobile app. With these programs, guests will have the ability to pick up items on the go and avoid the traditional checkout process.
“We are proud of our quick thinking and [Full Service+] pilot program as it represents the spirit of MAPCO always finding a different way to do things,” Chaveyriat said. “Whether we realize it or not, the pandemic has drastically changed everyday aspects of our lives, and that includes the way we shop. Long before the COVID-19 outbreak, it was proven that the traditional retail model simply wasn’t enough to meet the needs of both guests and team members. We are all living busy lives and looking for ways to make essential tasks and duties more efficient.”
The chief executive expects more c-store operators will shift to advancing their touchless pay offerings to make the customer experience more efficient and customizable.


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Prescott to hand Railtrack £1bn
Railtrack looks set to bank a £1bn Government windfall to stave off financial crisis and put its five-year investment programme back on track.
Transport Minister John Prescott is understood to have bowed to pleas from the company responsible for Britain's rail infrastructure after Railtrack said its debts of £8bn would break its banking covenants within 12 months.
Railtrack reportedly told Prescott that is had been forced to shave £5.5bn off its £8bn investment plans.
As part of the agreement, Prescott is understood to have demanded that Railtrack appoints a Government-approved chairman to replace Sir Philip Beck, who will retire this summer.
The £1bn early payment will be deducted from the £15bn Government package due to be paid to Railtrack over the next five years. It will be used for maintenance work and to increase the company's borrowing power, said Railtrack.
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U.S. auto safety investigators are investigating whether Honda Motor Co. should recall 320,000 minivans for air bag problems.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it is opening a preliminary investigation into whether 320,000 2003-04 Honda Odyssey minivans should be recalled.
NHTSA has received six consumer complaints on 2003-04 Honda Odyssey vehicles from owners alleging frontal air bags suddenly deployed without a crash. Three of the six owners also alleged they sustained injury from the incident. All six owners stated that their vehicles were on the roadway when the air bag deployment occurred. In addition, NHTSA has received an additional 41 consumer complaints alleging the vehicle’s air bag warning light illuminated.
The issue initially came up in 2011, when NHTSA was investigating inadvertent air bag deployments in Chrysler vehicles, the electronic air bag module supplier reported that some 2003-04 Honda Odyssey vehicles use the same application-specific integrated circuit component within the airbag control module. In February, Chrysler Group LLC said it was recalling 3,660 2003-04 Viper cars to fix airbags that could deploy without warning. In October, Chrysler recalled more than 920,000 vehicles worldwide over the issue after 215 reports of improper airbag deployments and 93 minor injuries — and nearly 750,000 in the United States. The earlier recall included the 2002-03 Jeep Liberty SUV and 2002-04 Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Honda has been in talks with NHTSA for months but said the electronic circuits in its air bags are not faring the same as Chrysler vehicles.
“Since no accident or property damage caused by air bag deployment of the driver frontal air bag has been reported, and the occurrence rate is extremely low, Honda will continue to handle these claims on a case-by-case basis, per usual practice,” Honda said in a letter to NHTSA in December.
Toyota Motor Corp. in January agreed to recall nearly 900,000 vehicles —2003-2004 Corolla/Matrix and Pontiac Vibe cars — for similar air bag problems “and will utilize a similar remedy to that of Chrysler consisting of adding an in-line noise filter to its air bag wire harness,” NHTSA said.
Honda said it found 126 air bag deployments in non-crash situations for frontal, side impact and/or side curtain air bag deployments across four models and 800,000 vehicles, NHTSA said, but no more than 25 of those are from frontal air bags.
“The remaining involved less aggressive non-frontal ABIDs mainly stemming from side sensors that trigger side and/or side curtain air bags upon undercarriage debris strike or heavy door slams. The Honda rates are lower than those from the recalled Liberty and Toyota models, and with the exception of the MY 2002-2003 Odyssey, the other Honda models’ failure mode/trend was also less severe. ODI will continue to monitor the affected Honda models,” NHTSA said.
NHTSA will decide whether its investigation should be upgraded to an engineering analysis. Not all investigations result in recalls.
Source: Detroit News


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No longer participating in major industry events like E3, Sony likes to hold State of Play events in order to reveal what’s next for PlayStation consoles. The latest event is slated to start soon, with Sony teasing news for games launching for PS4 and PS5. Let’s get into how you can watch the March 2022 PlayStation State of Play.
Watch the March 2022 PlayStation State of Play here
Today’s PlayStation State of Play will begin at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET. The event will be streamed on PlayStation’s Twitch and YouTube channels, and you’ll be able to watch it using the video embed above. Sony has confirmed that the State of Play will run for 20 minutes. Afterwards, fans will be able to view it as a VOD on YouTube.
Sony hasn’t announced what will be shown during the event, but the company did share that it will be primarily focused on games from Japanese studios, with some perhaps a couple exceptions. The company has also explicitly stated that there will be no mention of PS VR 2 or its lineup of games during this State of Play.
With titles like Gran Turismo 7 and Horizon Forbidden West recently released for the PS4 and PS5, it’ll be interesting to see what takes the main focus of the latest PlayStation State of Play. If you’re not able to watch the event, you can expect to catch all of the announcements right here on Shacknews.


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While the exact reasoning for the reshuffle is unclear, it's probably tied to From Software's acquisition by Kadokawa Corporation last month, especially since the transfer was formally concluded today. Kadokawa's known in Japan for its extensive manga library but in recent years it's dipped further into the gaming market, publishing Suda51's Killer is Dead and Lollipop Chainsaw and developing games like Natural Doctrine and Demon Gaze.
Posted on Oct 20th 2014 3:30PM
Posted on Oct 20th 2014 12:49PM
Posted on Oct 18th 2014 1:30PM


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Wednesday October 30 marks the first charity drive whisky tasting for the Winnipeg Whisky Club with all dues to be donated to Children’s Hospital Foundation of Manitoba.
poster for Scotch Bourbon & Rye Smorgasbord – watch for updates!
The Smorgasbord takes place Wednesday October 30 on Henderson Highway past Chief Peguis Trail from 7:00 to 10:00 pm.
This momentous event is in association with the whisky club social movement known as Drams for Fams which started with the Edmonton Scotch Club in 2016 and has begun to spread to clubs around the world.
At the Scotch Bourbon & Rye Smorgasbord, members have offered up their own bottles of whisky to cut club expenses in order to maximize our impact on the Foundation’s coffers.
10 or more bottles of the good stuff from around the world will be shared to members and guests who wish to enjoy sharing a dram with every cent of their $33 dollar dues going to the children’s charity.
Attendees can choose any 6 of the luxury liquids to enjoy in the cozy warm Winnipeg Whisky Club atmosphere. light snacks will be served.
Members are advised to RSVP promptly. Anyone who would like to join us for a few Drams for Fams or to become a member please contact club president Mark Kaufmann at firstname.lastname@example.org.


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As many as 100,000 Thai retail stores may close for good this year as a direct result of the downturn due to the Covid-19 restrictions, according to the Thai Retailers Association (TRA).
Vice president of the TRA, Chatrchai Toungratanaphan, said retail revenue could drop by US$8billion from May to August with 100,000 retailers likely to close permanently due to the new Covid-19 Delta variant wave which has forced extended lockdowns and movement restrictions across much of the nation. Toungratanaphan estimates the country’s retail sales will drop by 12 per cent this year.
“The spread of the Delta strain is much more intense than the first wave last year,” said Toungratanaphan. “The latest lockdown and curfew measures covering 29 provinces only make the situation worse for retailers.”
Sales in restaurants dropped between 80 and 90 per cent in June, while sales at convenience stores contracted by 25 per cent due to curfews. Meanwhile, retailers are struggling to receive new loans from financial institutions. Toungratanaphan said only 10 per cent of 30,000 applicants seeking help from banks were securing approval.
Toungratanaphan also expects the retail industry will take longer than previously anticipated to recover – now, the TRA believes things won’t improve until mid-2023, at the earliest.


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For the first time, the Coca-Cola Company has discussed the process involved in creating the global campaign to be introduced next spring for its flagship Coca-Cola brand. Its disclosures indicate that the Creative Artists Agency has gained a far more influential role in that process that initially believed.
C.A.A., the Beverly Hills, Calif., talent agency led by Michael Ovitz, was named last year as a creative consultant to McCann-Erickson Worldwide, the brand's longtime flagship shop. C.A.A.'s hiring was a signal that Coca-Cola was beginning to seek ideas from sources other than McCann and McCann's parent, the Interpublic Group of Companies. That is important because the move has encouraged other agencies to hope they might loosen Interpublic's grip on Coca-Cola's estimated $367 million in billings.
In an internal memo sent yesterday to marketing managers, Peter S. Sealey, Coca-Cola's senior vice president and director of global marketing, wrote that "both C.A.A. and McCann-Erickson were involved in the development of the creative concepts." While McCann-Erickson executives have been saying they took the lead in that process, the memo only stated that both participated.
And, the memo added, "both will be producing executions." That means Coca-Cola has granted C.A.A. the highly unusual right to produce commercials on its own, separate from McCann-Erickson. Executives who insisted on anonymity said the bulk of the executions would be C.A.A.'s rather than McCann-Erickson's.
A spokesman for McCann-Erickson in New York said the agency would have no comment.
A spokeswoman for Coca-Cola in Atlanta said, "By utilizing the strengths of both C.A.A. and Interpublic, we feel we are redefining the creative process in a way that will benefit the company." Critics, both internal and external, have complained that Coca-Cola needs more appealing, effective and intrusive advertising to compete against rival Pepsi-Cola.
Though forthcoming on the process, the memo was mum on details of the new campaign, which will replace the theme "Can't beat the real thing" in the United States and "Can't beat the feeling" elsewhere in the world. Trade publications have reported it might be something like "Always Coke."Continue reading the main story


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By Patrick Hatch
A record profit has not been enough to save Harvey Norman from a sharemarket savaging after the retailer cut its full-year dividend on Thursday.
Harvey Norman shares had fallen 7 per cent - or 31¢ a share - by midday after it announced a fully franked 26¢ a share dividend for the the 2017 financial year, down from 30¢ in 2016.
The company said it was reviewing its capital management and weighing up a share buyback and possible investments.
The sell-off came despite Harvey Norman announcing its net profit jumped 29 per cent to $449 million for the year, beating analysts' expectations.
Sales from company-owned stores in New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Slovenia and Croatia rose 2.1 per cent and earnings jumped 24 per cent to $90 million.
"This is a fantastic effort from our offshore operations," company chairman Gerry Harvey said in a statement.
"The success of our flagship strategy is clearly evident in these results."
Australian franchisee sales increased 5.4 per cent to $5.62 billion as housing construction and renovation continued to be "robust", Mr Harvey said.
This sales growth and higher franchisee fees sent Harvey Norman head office's earnings from Australian stores up 13 per cent to $304.5 million, the company said.
Morgan Stanley analyst Tom Kierath said there had been a "considerable slowing" in comparable sales at Harvey Norman in the fourth quarter, growing at 2.3 per cent compared to 7.4 per cent in January and February.
Harvey Norman's share price has slid by almost a quarter over the past year, under the weight of fears Amazon will eat into its sales and profitability when the American online retailer opens in Australia next year.
Citi analysts have suggested competition from Amazon could force Harvey Norman to lower its profit margin by between 1.8 and 2.5 per cent.


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The news: Google parent company Alphabet reported 62% year-over-year (YoY) revenue increase in Q2 2021, including rapid growth to all three main segments of its ad business:
- Search. Google reported an increase of 68% in revenues for Google search and “other” on-property ads, to $38.85 billion. This was significantly faster growth than we anticipated for the quarter. Search is still by far the largest segment of Google’s ad business. On the earnings call, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat reported that growth in search ad spending was broad-based but particularly propelled by retail ad spending.
- YouTube. Revenues for YouTube ads were up by a whopping 84% to just over $7 billion—another beat compared with our expectations. Brand advertising has remained dominant on YouTube, though its performance business has grown over the past couple years. Porat noted the increase to YouTube revenues in Q2 was largely attributable to brand advertisers.
- Google Network. Google’s off-property offering grew revenues by more than 60% in Q2, remaining larger than YouTube at $7.6 billion. Again, this growth was much higher than our expectations, indicating that not only is Google doing well in terms of ad revenues, but the rest of the programmatic web is also enjoying continued rapid growth YoY.
More on this: In May, we predicted that US programmatic digital display ad spending would rise by 29.0% this year. Programmatic ad firms including The Trade Desk, Viant, and Pubmatic will report earnings in August.
- Google’s earnings reports for both Q1 and Q2 beat our expectations substantially. Back in March, we estimated that Google would grow its worldwide net ad revenues by 25.3% this year and that US net ad revenues would increase by 24.7%.
- Based on yesterday’s earnings, we anticipate making another upward revision to our outlook for Google’s ad revenues as part of our US digital ad spending forecast update this fall.