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Published On: July 27, 2020 08:25 PM NPT By: Republica | @RepublicaNepal
KATHMANDU, July 27: Nepal’s trade deficit in the last fiscal year dropped by 16.71% to Rs 1.1 trillion with a fall of a double digit percent point in import expenses.
According to the Department of Customs (DoC), Nepal paid a total import bill of Rs 1.19 trillion, a decline of 15.63% in 2019/20. Along with imports, the export earnings also fell by a nominal 0.98% as a result of the coronavirus impact. The country that enjoyed growth in the exports up to 11 months of the last fiscal year resorted to negative value due to heavy fall in exports in the final month, according to the DoC statistics.
As per the officials of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, imports fell by a notable amount after the government imposed import restriction measures along with the lockdown and coronavirus that grappled the country for almost four months on the year end.
With the narrowed trade deficit, the country’s imports and exports ratio has come down to 12.45 from 14.61 in the previous fiscal year. It means that Nepal imported goods worth Rs 12.45 for every export earning of Re 1 in 2019/20.
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Category: AU Market & Economy
Monday Market Highlights: 13 June 2022
Kate Power, 13 Jun 2022
This week on Monday Market Highlights, Investment Analyst Kate Power covers the latest official cash rate of the Reserve bank of Australia and the European Central Bank, the US inflation rate, AGL’s outage at lo Yang, and IFM’s stake in Atlas Arteria.
Monday Market Highlights: 6 June 2022
Brendan Larsen, 06 Jun 2022
This week on Monday Market Highlights, Brendan Larsen covers the latest US consumer confidence index and Non-farm Payrolls report, Australian Q1 GDP, AGL’s plan to separate retailer AGL Australia and Xcel Energy, Origin Energy, and Lithium stocks.

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The Commerce Department reported today that retail sales in May were down 0.3 percent. But not really. Inflation was actually negative last month, so in real terms the decline was only 0.1 percent. It also means the decline wasn’t “the sharpest since a 1% decrease in January 2016.” There have been five declines in the past two years bigger than May’s, including a drop of 0.32 percent just three months ago.
So should we just relax about last month’s weak retail figures? I’ll let you decide. For the affirmative, there’s this chart:
Nothing much there, really. But for the negative, there’s this chart:
The trendline is pretty steadily down. Roughly speaking, this confirms my current belief that the economy is still doing OK, but a little less OK as time goes on. It seems like our nine-year expansion may be slowly running out of steam.


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First Free Story (1 of 3)Join Skift Pro
Toss out all of the rhetoric of several years ago that HomeAway and Airbnb are going after two separate markets.
HomeAway CFO Lynn Aitchison told an investor conference yesterday that the two companies have a 12 percent overlap in listings, adding “we know they are coming after our space.”
Aitchison told the Raymond James 36th Annual Institutional Investors Conference in Orlando that HomeAway is keenly aware that Airbnb is raising money but she argued that HomeAway will likewise benefit if Airbnb expands consumer awareness about alternatives to hotels.
The party line used to be that sharing economy proponent Airbnb was targeting primary dwellings in urban locales while HomeAway stuck mostly to second homes in resort areas so the two leaders in their respective categories weren’t necessarily on a collision course.
But these converging markets will ultimately lead to a lot more overlap than 12 percent of HomeAway’s listings in future years.
HomeAway is kicking off a new marketing campaign to promote vacation rentals and to point out its differences with Airbnb.
Atchison conceded HomeAway needs to do a better job than it did in the past of emphasizing that the two companies have varying business models and value propositions.
Among them, HomeAway doesn’t charge travelers a booking fee and gives owners more control over their cash flow, Atchison said.
If Airbnb is gunning for HomeAway, Atchison downplayed any strides that rival Booking.com may be making in vacation rentals in Europe.
Booking.com has added property managers such as Interhome to enroll apartment hotels in Europe but Atchison isn’t necessarily believing Booking.com’s recent claims that it is making progress in signing up individual vacation rental owners in Europe.
Atchison contends that vacation rental owners don’t want the instant online bookings and confirmations that Booking.com favors and instead they prefer the 24-hour window that HomeAway gives owners to vet potential guests.
Said Atchison of Booking.com’s efforts in enrolling vacation rental owners, which is a HomeAway strength: “We believe it is easier said than done.”


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Cryptocurrency wallet Coinbase suffered an outage on Wednesday, preventing many users from trading digital tokens like Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and fast-rising Shiba Inu.
Customers who visited the site in the afternoon reported they were unable to reach Coinbase and its professional-level service Coinbase Pro online. An error message blamed “connection issues” and reassured users that their funds were safe.
Users started submitting outage reports about Coinbase just after 3:00 p.m. ET, according to the Internet activity tracking service Downdetector. Coinbase’s confirmed the outage on Twitter, saying that it is “all hands on deck to get this resolved as soon as possible,” while acknowledging that customer trades and transactions may be delayed.
After around 90 minutes, the outage seemed to start dissipating.
Coinbase previously went offline in May amid a huge influx of traffic, contributing to Bitcoin prices tumbling. The company had also suffered frequent outages in 2017 because of technical problems.
The latest outage comes as the Shiba Inu coin reached an all-time high on Wednesday of $0.00005478, up 777% in the past 30 days. Twitter users blamed the boom market for the dog-theme cryptocurrency for the Coinbase outage, though Coinbase didn’t give a reason.
The impact on traders can be significant when their brokerages or crypto wallets go offline. In May 2020, online brokerage Robinhood suffered a two-day outage, causing some customers to lose money, including one who said he had lost $52,000 after being unable to trade on one of the year’s most volatile trading days. Customers demanded that Robinhood compensate them and filed a class action lawsuit against the company. The financial industry’s self-regulatory body, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, fined Robinhood $70 million for previous outages and other infractions.
More tech coverage from Fortune:
- Thera-who? These biotech firms are looking to push what’s possible with blood
- Teens have been losing interest in Facebook for years, data shows
- Crypto project Worldcoin wants to give you coins in exchange for an eye scan
- Lucid Motor’s Air EV finally hits the roads with a range that blows Tesla away
- How Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen became the company’s worst nightmare
Subscribe to Fortune Daily to get essential business stories straight to your inbox each morning.


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5G technology has been on the horizon for some time now but what will that mean for consumers, and therefore marketers, when it hits the mainstream? In this session, Siok Hoon Gan, managing director at Singtel will uncover why this technology will change the face of media, gaming and commerce for good.
From China to the world, almost any major brand has a strategy for sales on 11.11. What started as Singles Day is now the world’s biggest online shopping day. Chris Tung, CMO at... read more
5G technology has been on the horizon for some time now but what will that mean for consumers, and therefore marketers, when it hits the mainstream? In this session, Siok Hoon Gan,... read more
In a year that continues to test brand resilience, trademark Pepsi has relied on social listening as its north star - using it as a tool to amplify culture-led conversations. Todd... read more
Whatsapp is truly a global brand, being used across hundreds of countries across the world. Whatsapp global head of brand and consumer marketing Eshan Ponnadurai talks about the... read more
CTV has been much-lauded as a top investment for brands and publishers alike, but what are consumers really watching and what does this mean for advertisers? This panel will use... read more
Creating emotive advertising starts with storytelling, but in a world where you need to reach more of the target audience, quickly, scaling stories takes the right strategy and tools.
This... read more
2020 has created novel challenges for digital advertisers and accelerated trends already underway around platform consolidation, supply path optimisation, and a focus on quality.... read more
Connected TV’s momentum is undeniable. After gaining significant traction in the U.S., CTV is now proliferating throughout Europe—with half of UK households now streaming. Roku’s... read more


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Despite the opposition of Cox Connecticut Telecommunications LLC, the state’s Department of Public Utility Control has approved use of a consumer win-back program there by the local unit of SBC Communications Inc.
The cable telephony unit had complained that the promotion, which SBC launched on April 1, violated tariff rules, because it was applied to both regulated and nonregulated service offerings.
SBC’s promotion takes a page out of the marketing book from its video and other competitors.
If a Connecticut residential or business customer opts to buy their service from the local SBC unit, their installation charges will be waived.
“It’s typical of the entire industry, a way to get customers to switch back to us by offering an incentive,” said SBC regional spokeswoman Beverly Levy.
But noting the concerns of competitors, the DPUC asked the other telephony vendors to keep data on the impact of the dominant carrier’s win-back program.
The DPUC voted to approve the SBC win-back program on April 14.
Levy said the promotion is scheduled to continue through Sept. 30.


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- All
- Week that was
- VR Visionaries
- News
- Profile
- Interviews & Opinion
Q&A: Leland Hedges, Pico's head of consumer products, EMEA
'We want to disrupt the current status quo and provide a bold new choice for consumers'
How Resident Evil 4 VR succeeded where others have failed
With the new Mercenaries mode revealed during the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase, Armature's Tom Ivey talks about updating a classic for virtual reality
Meta's Jason Rubin on VR as a maturing medium
The Metaverse Content VP answers which rules of development are there to be broken and whether virtual reality is a competitor for next generation consoles
Zuckerberg Teases More Of Meta’s Metaverse
New interview delivers a behind-the-scenes exploration of how the future might be here sooner than you think
Interview: Varjo on why now is the right time for consumer human eye resolution VR
Sam Watts on the broadening of retro and rise of immersive technologies like VR
XR Games' Bobby Thandi on the social impact of VR during social distancing
"Think about what extra value you can offer to a games studio."
Tommy: VR Wizard
We speak with industry veteran, games guru and founder of one of mobile VR’s leading studios, Tommy Palm, about social VR, the rise of AR and gaming’s place at the core of this revolutionary technology.
The Magic Of VR: Pulling Rabbits Out Of Hats
Hatrabbit Entertainment's co-founders talk to us about being pioneers, escapists and dreamers, and the importance of finding out fast what the public enjoys.
VR’s Emotional Future
We speak to Fibrum’s founder about the company’s ambitions to bring emotions to people in Virtual Reality that they may be lacking in everyday life.
Piercing The Darkness Surrounding Universal Human Truths
Here Be Dragons’ Ed Robles explores episodic content in VR as a platform for bold and inventive storytelling.
Where AAAs Fear To Tread: How Indies Are Winning In VR
Fresh from the PlayStation showcase at Paris Games Week, the Swedish developers talk to Alex Calvin about multiple platforms, motion sickness and helping the VR market explode.
The Start Of The VR Chapter
Intel’s Steve Shakespeare talks to Alex Calvin about the opportunities in VR gaming and beyond as the industry moves towards a $53b future in 2025.
Dial VR For Visibility
Italian games developer, Forge Reply, talks VR development, third-person VR gaming and choosing Unreal over Unity.


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BEIJING (Reuters) -Overall sales by China’s e-commerce huge JD.com rose 10.3% about the 18 days to Sunday throughout the initial main searching festival since a the latest COVID-19 outbreak, the company stated, sharply down from the 2021 event’s growth of 27.7%.
This year’s determine was the slowest for the retailer, exhibiting how buyer urge for food in the world’s 2nd major economic system has been strike by lockdowns to halt the Omicron variant of coronavirus and slowing financial ailments.
Chinese buyers procured 379.3 billion yuan ($56.48 billion) of goods on JD’s system above the “618” period, it explained on its official WeChat account.
“We are further strengthening delivery services in city and rural spots,” it extra in assertion, referring to initiatives throughout the occasion that built on its source chain infrastructure and electronic intelligence engineering.
The 618 occasion is China’s 2nd largest browsing pageant immediately after Singles Working day in November, and was initiated in 2004 to mark JD.com’s founding anniversary.
JD.com’s rivals, run by Alibaba Group and Pinduoduo are likely not to publish 618 figures.
But consultancy Syntun estimated that on the internet e-commerce platforms which includes Alibaba’s Tmall marketplace, JD.com and Pinduoduo alongside one another realized 582.6 billion yuan ($86.75 billion) really worth of 618 gross sales this 12 months, just about flat when compared with final year’s 578.5 billion yuan.
Even with initiatives by the e-commerce providers this 12 months, these types of as to simplify advertising rules and give deeper reductions, “reaction from the industry was lukewarm”, Syntun said in a report on Sunday.
Shopping festivals have historically been well known in China, with numerous buyers delaying buys to profit from the large special discounts they provide to entice purchasers.
But there have been currently indicators last calendar year of faltering shopper demand from customers at this kind of situations, when rival Alibaba saw product sales growth of just 8.5% during its Singles Working day frenzy, also its slowest at any time.
In excess of the very last 3 months, China’s struggle to restrain COVID-19 has brought lockdown actions of various intensity in dozens of towns, in turn hitting paying out, livelihoods and provide chains.
To stimulate need this yr key e-commerce platforms pushed models to give more substantial savings for the 618 function, but some businesses and agents advised Reuters they prepared to scale down this sort of participation.
Aside from e-commerce companies, extra world wide web platforms and offline retailers joined this year’s celebration, among them brief movie platforms Douyin and Kuaishou.
($1 = 6.7160 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Sophie Yu, Brenda Goh editing by David Evans)
Copyright 2022 Thomson Reuters.


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Spot market freight rates on the southbound Asia-Oceania trade lane are defying the laws of economics as rates are rising but volumes are falling, according to new insights from maritime analyst Drewry.
Declining ocean volumes
Volumes have declined for four consecutive quarters on the Asia-to-Oceania route, according to data derived from Container Trade Statistics. This last occurred in the early part of the decade.
Year-to-date volumes to Oceania from Northeast Asia have fallen by 5.3% and from Southeast Asia by 6.2%. Container volumes into Australia, which covers 84% of the trade (the rest mostly to New Zealand), have fallen by 7%, Drewry said.
Drewry attributed the fall in volumes to a “sluggish” Australian economy, noting that there has been “weak spending growth in the household sector.”
According to Peter Martin, visiting fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, the Australian economy barely grew this year. In the quarter ending March this year, the economy grew by 0.5%. In the quarter ending June this year, the economy grew by 0.6%. And for the quarter ending September this year, the economy grew 0.4%.
Over the year to September, the Australian economy grew 1.7% “well short of the budget forecasts, which in year average terms were 2.25% for 2018-19 and 2.75% for 2019-20”, Martin writes. The 10 year average is about 2.6%.
And that’s important for maritime trade because, as shown by Martin Stopford in his book “Maritime Economics,” gross domestic product is highly positively correlated with the volume of maritime trade — the higher the levels of gross domestic product country then higher the volumes of trade.
Meanwhile, real household spending grew by 0.1% in the July-to-September quarter and, over the year to September, inflation-adjusted spending grew by 1.6%, “meaning [that] the volume of goods and services bought per person went backwards,” Martin said.
It’s true. Seasonally adjusted retail figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that the percentage change from June to September quarters of “turnover in volume terms” went marginally backward with a figure of minus 0.1% recorded.
One of the main reasons for the slowdown in consumer spending is that wages in Australia are stagnating. Annual wage growth in total hourly rates of pay (excluding bonuses) in June was about 2.3%. In mid-2012, that figure was close to 4%, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Obviously, higher wages should (barring a huge surge in costs) translate into higher disposable income. Conversely, lower wages should (barring a huge fall in costs) translate into lower disposable income.
Attempts at stimulus
Meanwhile, Australia’s federal government tried to boost spending by making tax cuts, delivered in the form of a tax rebate (i.e., actual cash in the taxpayer’s pocket), from July 1 onward.
Drewry said it “remains to be seen” whether the tax cuts to stimulate consumer spending will translate into imports from Asia. But the signs don’t look good for that scenario.
According to Martin, by the end of November, the Australian Taxation Office had issued more than 8.8 million tax refunds totaling A$25 billion (just over $17 billion).
“Instead of being largely spent, they were mostly saved, pushing up the household saving ratio from 2.7% to 4.8%, its highest point in more than two years,” Martin wrote.
Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Australia has announced it will begin quantitative easing as the overnight cash rate (the rate of interest that banks pay each other overnight) approaches 0.25%. Eight years ago the cash rate was 4.5% and now it is about 0.75%.
Quantitative easing happens when a central bank, here the Reserve Bank of Australia, buys existing government bonds. That tends to push asset prices up, force interest rates down (thereby lessening the burden on companies and households with large debts such as working capital overdrafts and mortgages) and, in theory, should encourage people and companies to borrow more money as debt becomes cheaper. The hope is that they will invest and buy more.
Meanwhile, as previously reported in FreightWaves’ Down Under Trucking, the Australian government has announced that it will bring forward A$3.8 billion ($2.6 billion) of infrastructure investment.
An intriguing anomaly: freight rates rise despite fall in volumes
Although the fundamental of the Asia-Oceania trade (i.e., Australia’s domestic economy) is weakening, Drewry has noticed an intriguing anomaly.
“Curiously, while container demand has ebbed away for most of the year, freight rates — at least from Northeast Asia — have actually taken the opposite path since June. Drewry’s Container Freight Rate Insight reports that average 40-foot container prices from Shanghai to Melbourne have nearly trebled over the course of seven months, rising from $1,090 in May to $2,800 in November,” the maritime analyst writes.
Drewry attributed the November peak (the highest since February 2018) partly to the introduction of IMO 2020-related emergency bunker fuel surcharges and also to increased port handling fees by container terminal operators, which FreightWaves has extensively reported on.
Reduced supply of container slots drove rates higher
However, it appears that higher freight rates on the north Asia-Oceania corridor have been caused by a reduction in the supply of marine carriage. Maersk, Hamburg Sud and MSC suspended one of their loops earlier in the year, which cut capacity by four ships of 5,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs).
Although a rival consortium (HMM, APL and Evergreen) later added capacity back to the trade, Drewry reports that “the total number of slots available to the market was still lower than in March thanks to other service rationalisations and void sailings … fewer slots countered the demand lull and pushed Northeast Asia-to-Oceania ship utilisation up from around 60% in March to just over 80% in October.”
Southeast Asia was different
Rates from Southeast Asia to Oceania have not experienced the same upswing because a consortium of shipping lines has added seven ships of 8,500 TEUs and six ships of 5,700 TEUs into the trade (although Maersk took a large amount of capacity away from Southeast Asia when it rededicated it to the Northeast Asia trade).
Drewry reported that slot capacity from Southeast Asia to Oceania in November rose by 11% in October.
“Unsurprisingly, spot rates ex [Southeast] Asia have not had the same impetus as from [Northeast] Asia with Singapore-to-Melbourne spot rates currently only around $1,500/40-foot, according to Drewry’s Container Freight Rate Insight, which is roughly $200 down on where they were at the start of the year,” the maritime analyst concluded.


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While many drivers on the stretch of Highway 101 just north of Ukiah-proper might only see the large In-N-Out Burger sign, many others have noticed the large building going up near Factory Pipe.
It is a winery being constructed by Rhys Vineyards of Los Gatos, which bought three acres of the former Masonite property from Factory Pipe owner Ross Liberty last year.
“He is going to build a Taj Mahal,” Ross Liberty said of Rhys Vineyards owner Kevin Harvey when the sale was announced last year, describing Harvey’s business as “a class act” that is going to bring good wages along with more wine tourism to the area.
“They pay 15-percent more than other vineyards here, and they’ve committed to putting in a really nice-looking building, which everyone can see from the freeway,” said Liberty.
“This sale will really help launch the industrial park,” he continued, explaining that when he bought the 63 acres in January of 2016, “I thought it might take 20 years to build it out, and that it might not be me who completed it. But now I think it might only take five years.”
Liberty said another 17 acres was recently purchased by Reuser, which operates a large business that “specializes in the manufacturing and bulk distribution of organic landscape materials” in Cloverdale.
Rhys Vineyards, which grows the majority of its grapes in the Santa Cruz Mountains, owns Anderson Valley’s Bearwallow Vineyard, located just south of Navarro off Highway 128.
Asked when the new winery would be finished, Liberty said “they’re trying for crush” this fall.


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LONDON -- (PRESS RELEASE) -- Cutting-edge casino games provider BetOnSoft today announces that it has rebranded to Saucify.
The new brand name is evocative of adding sauce to a dish to make it more exciting and flavorsome, exactly what Saucify has been doing for the past eight years in the casino games market.
The name was chosen because it represents the company’s ethos of dynamism, originality and speed to market, and is a big step away from the many bland brands within the gaming industry.
Saucify’s marketing spokesman said the improved branding and messaging is part of a wider strategic marketing plan. “The name is a perfect fit for what we have done for the last eight years and what we intend to continue doing in the future – spicing up the gaming market with some of the best casino content available on desktop and on mobile.
“In truth, BetOnSoft wasn’t the most dynamic of names and didn’t reflect our unique and innovative offering. Our branding, marketing and messaging will all benefit as a result of our new corporate identity,” he added.
The company itself – whose products and platform have been described as “visionary” by Fusion-io -- the company that has Steve Wozniak (co-founder of Apple) as its Chief Scientist – won’t change in any way apart from the new brand identity.
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ibooks, a new-media and print book publisher, announced plans to launch a graphic novel publishing program early next year. The house, which publishes in a variety of categories in print and digital formats, plans to publish a graphic novel each month beginning in April 2003.
Byron Preiss, publisher of ibooks, has been involved in publishing book format comics since the 1970s. "It sounds wacky," said Preiss, "but we launched America's first graphic novel series, Fiction Illustrated, with Pyramid Books in 1976."
Preiss has collaborated with publishers like Bantam to publish graphic novels in the past with mixed results. But, he said, there's a new climate for book format comics. "When you look at the shelves of graphic novels in Virgin Mega stores and see Doubleday and Norton publishing graphic novels, you know the market has changed."
Ibooks Graphic Novels will publish a mix of genres by new artists and veteran comics creators. Books will be in both color and black and white. Preiss said the titles will offer original material as well as "new agglomerations" of published and unpublished content. Dean Motter, former designer at DC Comics, will design the line.
Each graphic novel, said Preiss, will be aimed at the general bookstore trade and comics specialty shops. "S&S, our distributor, will be proposing co-op to our bookstore partners. And we will target schools and libraries with these editions." Preiss said that the books will contain no explicit sexual content.
Initial titles will include Don Lomax's Vietnam Journal; Vic and Blood by Harlan Ellison and artist Richard Corben; and Raymond Chandler's Marlowe, an anthology of authorized comics adaptations of Chandler's classic detective stories.


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With cellular phones becoming more affordable, there seems to be few barriers to having one or more handsets. But, what do you with your old handsets in a market that is constantly being swamped by phones with new features?
Awareness that old and unused electronic goods, including your handsets, can be recycled is limited among most households.
Nokia's ‘Take Back' campaign, launched in 2009, is a programme aimed at raising awareness. Here, customers can drop their old handsets and accessories at any of the recycling bins set up across Nokia Priority Dealers and Nokia Care Centres.
“In the last quarter we collected over 20,000 handsets in the southern region. The 13 outlets of Nokia Care Centre in Chennai would have received about 10,000 handsets,” said an official.
To encourage customers to drop their unused handsets for a cause, Nokia outlets also give away pen sets for every piece dropped and eco-friendly pencils for a charger, added the official.
On why mobile recycling has not caught up much in the city, Prabhu Srinivasan, Country Manager, Sims Trishyiraya Recycling, a Chennai-based e-Waste recycling company, says cell phone is still a premium product and not many would part with it easily like other electronic goods.
It also has a resale value in the flea market. Even mobile showrooms agree that a user would rather give it to somebody in the family than exchange where the return is less.
“Unlike the car market where you get a fixed price, the value of a handset depends on the buyer-seller interaction. Any branded mobile depreciates by 50 to 75 per cent after a year, while Chinese handsets have no resale value,” says V. Rajagopalan, COO, UniverCell.
Mobile recycling is still at a nascent stage in the city. But if one is particular that the handset does not go into the landfill or pollute the water bodies, recycling consultants have some advice.
“It is important to ensure that you are giving away your eWaste to the right person as a majority of the players handling such waste are from the unorganised sector,” says Mr. Srinivasan. “An authorised recycle agent should have a licence from the Pollution Control Board and also from the Ministry of Environment and Forest and he or she should be able to convince you that the hazards caused by e-Waste will be managed,” he adds.
Most of the retail outlets on Ritchie Street have stopped accepting old mobile phones at a price as well exchanging old mobile phone for new.
Sales representatives at these shops say that it has increasingly become risky to take a second hand set as they would not know if the piece was stolen. A few other shops that allow exchanging an old set for a new ask for the bill receipt of the mobile from the customer.


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Well, once again it appears my attempt to be an early adopter of a new gadget has come up short. Somewhere in my desk drawer is a first-generation Flip mini video recorder. I bought it years ago. But never could figure out a reason to use it.
But hey. It was a hot toy and not too expensive relative to some of the other gadgets I have sitting around in the dark corners of my office, garage and so on. And I really don’t have much else to occupy large chunks of my time these days. So the notion of creating a video of dogs peeing on my lawn or something equally dramatic that would go viral on YouTube had some initial appeal. Fail.
Oops. I digress as usual.
Anyway, Cisco ended up buying Pure Digital, the maker of the Flip camera, for $590 million in 2009 — most likely right at the top of the camera’s popularity and hold on the market. And that might be a cautionary tale for the gang at Facebook and Twitter, where valuations are being talked about in the billions, not millions. But where technology and customer trends change quickly these days.
Here’s an interesting perspective from an article in the NYT, “For Flip Video Camera, Four Years From Hot Start-Up to Obsolete“:
It was one of the great tech start-up success stories of the last decade.
The Flip video camera, conceived by a few entrepreneurs in an office above Gump’s department store in San Francisco, went on sale in 2007, and quickly dominated the camcorder market.
The start-up sold two million of the pocket-size, easy-to-use cameras in the first two years. Then, in 2009, the founders cashed out and sold to Cisco Systems, the computer networking giant, for $590 million.
On Tuesday, Cisco announced it was shutting down its Flip video camera division.
Even in the life cycle of the tech world, this is fast.
From the outset, the acquisition was an odd fit for Cisco, which is known for its enterprise networking services. To some analysts, the decision to shutter Flip was an admission by Cisco that it made a mistake.
“Cisco was swayed by the sexiness of selling to the consumer,” said Mo Koyfman, a principal at Spark Capital, a Boston venture capital firm. “They’re not wired to do it themselves, so they do it by acquisition. Flip was one of the most visible targets out there. But it’s really hard to turn an elephant into a horse. Cisco’s an elephant.”
But the rapid rise, and now demise, of Flip is also a vivid illustration of the ferocious metabolism of the consumer marketplace and of the smartphone’s power to destroy other gadgets.
“It was unusually fast,” said Brent Bracelin, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. “It’s a testament to the pace of innovation in consumer electronics and smartphone technology. More and more functionality is being integrated into smartphones.”
The rapid innovation of smartphones, he said, is “one of the most disruptive trends we’ve seen.”
As newer and faster technologies beget newer and faster technologies, consumers move on to the next big thing with alacrity. In four years, Flip has gone from start-up, to dominant camcorder maker, to defunct. It took I.B.M. about four years just to reach dominance with its PC in the early 1980s. The iPad is only one year old.
Just as the Flip was reaching its zenith, the smartphone was gaining traction among consumers. With its versatility in recording video and still images, as well as its ability to perform myriad other functions, the smartphone has since proved to be a far more desirable product than a single-function device like the Flip.
This is also a story about Cisco — and other large dinosaur corporations that want to play with the start-ups. And full disclosure: I’ve been a long-suffering Cisco shareholder, holding a modest number of shares that I managed to acquire at the top of the technology boom (and subsequent bust) more than a decade ago.
And Cisco — and its CEO, the highly paid and universally admired by the lamestream media “Cisco Kid” John Chambers — have really been pathetic performers and returners of shareholder value (see NYT “Cisco Shareholders Are Due to Rise Up“) during the past decade. So it doesn’t surprise me that Chambers and crew managed to screw up the Flip.
But it did surprise at least some that Cisco had to kill the Flip. Here’s from CNET News, “Why Cisco killed the Flip mini camcorder“:
It’s easy to understand why Internet infrastructure giant Cisco Systems needed to get out of the consumer electronics business, but did it have to send a popular product, like to the Flip camcorder, to an early grave?
Cisco on Tuesday announced that it will stop making the Flip camera, a popular pocket-sized video camera it bought only a couple of years ago from a company called Pure Digital. The reason? The company said it is strategically realigning its business to focus on selling its core products.
“We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy,” Cisco CEO John Chambers said in a statement. “As we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network’s ability to deliver on those offerings.”


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Deli Star Corporation, an industry leader in protein manufacturing, announced plans for development of the Food Discovery Center – the company’s new hub for research and culinary innovation – at City Foundry STL. Scheduled to open in early spring 2021, the Food Discovery Center (FDC) will include multiple test kitchens, an education/instructional area, flexible office space and a scale-up production facility. It will be staffed by 30 full-time employees.
Comprising 16,500 square feet, the FDC will include two fully equipped test kitchens and four research-chef stations, a lecture-hall-style instructional space for culinary-science and food-nutrition classes, conferences and demonstrations; the Simple Promise© employee café and farmers market row; and a 4,500 square-foot customized “ghost kitchen” production facility – including a state-of-the-art industrial oven & smoker, blast freezer, dry storage and walk-in coolers/freezers – to support limited production of test products and cooking-technique innovations.
Deli Star is working with design and construction firm The Lawrence Group on overall site design, engineering and build-out, and the company has contracted Ford Hotel Supply to develop the design of the test kitchens.
“St. Louis has blossomed into a culinary innovation hub, and City Foundry STL is well positioned to become the epicenter for continued growth,” said chef Charles Hayes, vice president of culinary innovation and R&D for Deli Star. “At Deli Star, we are strong believers of open innovation – the collaboration and sharing of ideas to move our industry forward. Our new space and our proximity to like-minded industry leaders at City Foundry will benefit all involved – from our employees, customers and partners to our counterparts at City Foundry.”
Deli Star introduced its St. Louis Innovation Center concept in 2016, creating a dedicated space to collaborate with its foodservice-industry customers in pursuit of new and inventive ways to meet the needs of their partners. Seeking more space and the ability to add production capabilities, Deli Star recently selected the food-forward creative complex for merchants and makers – City Foundry STL– as the new site for its new center for innovation.
“In recent months, we have experienced a dramatic shift in how the hospitality industry will have to operate,” said Will Smith, asset manager of City Foundry STL. “By bringing together great culinary minds like chef Charles Hayes and the rest of the Deli Star team, along with James Beard winner (and City Foundry STL culinary director) Gerard Craft and his team at Niche Food Group, City Foundry will play a critical role in helping our industry reinvent and rebuild itself in the wake of COVID-19.”
Once open, Deli Star’s new FDC also will be the home of another Siegel family business initiative: Cure8 Ventures. Launched in 2019 to help startup companies in the food, health and wellness space grow and succeed, Cure8 Ventures is well positioned to complement Deli Star’s own R&D efforts to discover new and better ways of producing health, happiness and the joy of food.
“Over the past 30-plus years, Deli Star has built a solid reputation as a leader in product and process innovation and safety,” said Justin Seigel, CEO of Deli Star. “We have always viewed food as the intersection of science and culinary arts. We are eager to share this philosophy and learn from – and with – like-minded culinary leaders when we open the Food Discovery Center at The Foundry.”
Source: Deli Star Inc.
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In a move that is being widely appreciated by organizations working to stop animal cruelty, leading global luxury fashion house Gucci just announced it will no longer be using animal fur, beginning with its spring summer 2018 collection. Gucci’s President and CEO Marco Bizzarri announced the fur-free policy on October 11 during the 2017 Kering Talk at The London College of Fashion.
Gucci has had a long association with Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and LAV– members of the international Fur Free Alliance, a coalition of more than 40 animal protection organizations working together to end the fur trade.
“Gucci’s decision is a game-changing moment in the fashion industry,” PJ Smith, senior manager of fashion policy for the HSUS, said. “We’ll look back at this moment, I predict, and see that this was the turning point when the business world turned away from fur and substituted cruelty-free garments in its place.”
Read full news here: https://www.ecowatch.com/gucci-fur-free-2495636176.html


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Apple Music and Kanye West teamed up last week to offer an exclusive livestream of the listening event for West’s upcoming album Donda. The event was streamed exclusively on Apple Music from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, and it is said to have broken the record for an Apple Music livestream.
According to a report from TMZ, citing “sources with direct knowledge,” 3.3 million people tuned into the Apple Music livestream from the Kanye West Donda listening party. This is reportedly nearly double the preview record for an Apple Music livestream.
The report explains:
Sources with direct knowledge tell


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What’s Going on in West Green Lake/Aurora?
Reader Lynne, noticed that there were lots of changes on the West side of the lake along Aurora and wanted to know what was going on.
Here’s what we found out:
Aurora Suzuki Inc.
After being in business for 50 years, the owners of Aurora Suzuki on Winona Avenue and Aurora Avenue are planning to retire and close their store on September 30th. No word on what will take over the location.
The Purple Store and the surrounding buildings:
In June, a land use appeal was filed on that property at Aurora and N 77th St. If the project proceeds the new structure would require the demolition of the building currently housing the Purple Store, NW Audio Services and Kung Fu Club of Seattle, making way for a 4-story structure that would contain 34 residents and retail space. According to City permits, this is still in discussion.
It appears that Green Lake’s gun shop has shuttered… maybe. The signs have been removed and the website has been taken offline. The thing that has us stumped is that work is still being done on updating HVAC and electrical in the gun shop and living space above, according to the city permits.
Side note: Three years ago Butch’s was for sale.
New business on Keen Way and Aurora Ave?
On the corner of Keen Way and Aurora (near the Shell station) it appears that the old fruit stand is getting a face lift. A for lease sign has been taken down and crews have been cleaning up the blackberry bushes and working on the interior of the small structure that has been vacant for more than a year. No word on the next tenant. Developers had been eyeing that location for a potential apartment complex but no additional permits have been issued and there is no proposed land use action for that plot of land.


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The fastest-ever domestic production start in the nation will be made by the iPhone 14, one of the four models Apple unveiled on Wednesday, in India starting next quarter. By December, it anticipates that the made-in-India products will be offered for purchase. They will be made at the Foxconn facility close to Chennai, according to two top business leaders.
Analysts and business leaders predict that Apple will send the most iPhones to India ever in the December quarter, at roughly 570,000 units, up from 370,000 units in the previous quarter.
Since its release, Apple has gradually shortened the new iPhone model’s production delay in India. For its most recent flagship model, the iPhone 13, it moved from 10 to 12 months to six months. Even though testing runs are set to begin early next month, the launch this year will take place in two to three months.
This is a part of the business’s aim to establish new global production hubs and reduce its reliance on China, where production has been hindered numerous times since the outbreak as a result of local lockdowns imposed by the nation’s zero-Covid policy. However, China will provide the initial supply for the iPhone 14 series in both India and other countries.
“Apple’s iPhone 14 is expected to be the largest volume grosser in India amongst the new iPhones launched and hence that is likely to be the model to be first locally produced,” said Tarun Pathak, research director at Counterpoint Research. “Since the selling price is also high, it will help Apple to achieve its production linked incentive target in India.”
In the December quarter, he claimed that the series is anticipated to account for more than 20 to 25 percent of all iPhone sales in India.
The iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max are the four new iPhone 14 models that Apple revealed on Wednesday. Their prices range from Rs 79,900 to Rs 1,89,900. With the exception of the iPhone 14 Plus, which will go on sale on October 7 at the same time as it does in more developed regions like the US, UK, China, Japan, and France, the company will start selling these models in India on September 16.
By using its three contract manufacturers in India, Apple is anticipated to produce 11–12 million iPhones in 2022, an increase from 7.5 million in 2021. In 2022, domestic demand for iPhones is anticipated to represent 85% of total consumption.
“This will be driven by early local manufacturing and the festive season sales,” said Prabhu Ram, head, industry intelligence group, CMR. “This is potentially slated to be the best-ever launch quarter for Apple in India.”
According to market research firm CMR, Apple’s iPhone shipments will increase by 50% in the year’s debut quarter. According to Navkendar Singh, associate vice president of devices research at IDC India, South Asia, and ANZ, Apple will have another strong quarter and a record year.
“Spending on premium devices is growing, hence the next six months will give good volumes to Apple in the premium space till we see Samsung’s Galaxy S23 in February.” The iPhone 13 and 13 Pro will still drive volumes in India, he said.
Both CMR and Counterpoint Research forecast an increase in Apple’s India shipments from last year’s 5 million units to 7–7.5 million units for the entire calendar year. According to Counterpoint Research, Apple’s overall market share in the Indian smartphone industry will reach its greatest level ever this year, reaching 4%, with over 47% of the premium market.


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TORONTO, Sept. 30, 2020 – Club Coffee welcomes the Ontario government announcement that municipalities should now include certified compostable coffee pods in their food waste diversion programs under the province’s updated Food and Organic Waste Policy Statement. “Ontario government support for compostable coffee pods including Club Coffee’s PURPOD100® is a game-changer,” said Club Coffee CEO John Pigott.
Club Coffee, the leader in plant-based compostable single-serve coffee pods, is implementing the How2Recycle and How2Compost label instructions on its packaging. It joins more than 250 North American industry leaders using the programs to give consumers clear messaging about where their packaging is designed to be discarded when they’re done using it.
What happens to your plastic coffee pods once they’re thrown away? They’re probably going straight to a landfill — even the ones labelled “recyclable”. Professor Calvin Lakhan of the Faculty of Environmental Studies at Toronto’s York University is one of Canada’s leading experts on our waste systems.
The Canadian government recently announced it would be tackling the global pollution crisis with bans on single-use plastics.
The details of the Canadian plan remain to be seen, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would follow the lead of the European Union with their vote to ban items that often end up littered in oceans and waterways.
Separating Fact From Fiction – Get answers to your questions!
– Are plastic coffee pods recyclable?
– Why aren’t the K-Cup®* and RealCup pods recyclable?
– I thought that if I separate the lid from the plastic pod, and dump out the coffee, I can put it in my Blue Bin?
– Why do some manufacturers advertise that their pods can be recycled?
New Ontario Working Group Expected to Recommend How to Accept Compostable Coffee Pods and Other Innovations in Ontario Green Bins
Toronto, June 20, 2019 — Club Coffee, the leader in plant-based, compostable single serve coffee pods, saluted the Ontario government decision to move rapidly so compostable coffee pods will be accepted in all Ontario green bins.


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Cornerstone Insurance Plc has reported a 21.58 percent in underwriting profit in the first nine months even amid an unfavorable underwriting environment.
Of course, the insurer is benefitting from the institution of rigorous cost control measures and branch optimisation exercises targeted at improving the efficiency and profitability of its operations.]
For the first nine months through September 2022, Cornerstone Insurance posted underwriting profit of N4 billion from a profit position of N3.29 billion as at September 2021.
While the combined ratio of 109.62 percent as at September 22 is higher than the 100 percent internationally accepted benchmark, it is still below 2021’s 114.28 percent.
Cornerstone Insurance has tightened its risk acceptance parameters as competitive pressures have driven premium rates to uneconomic levels.
“At Cornerstone Insurance Plc, one of our core values is empathy and this is reflected in the quality of our service delivery to our customers at all times. Our customers are the reason we are in business, to this end, we focus on delivering quality service at all times,” said the company.
“We engage our customers and utilise feedback received to constantly improve on our service delivery, product offerings and distribution channels, adds the company.
The insurer paid N2.36 billion in claims to policyholders as at September 2022, which is 0.42 percent lower than 2021’s N2.37 billion.
Claims ratio reduced to 30.95 percent in the period under review from 38.12 percent as at September 2021.
As a result of an increase in fair value loss on financial assets, Cornerstone Insurance’s net income or profit after tax (PAT) dipped by 36.95 percent to N964.62 million as at September 2022.
The company’s innovative products are making an inroad into the Nigerian market with acceptance from customers as net premium income was up 22.79 percent to N7.64 billion.


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With Chinese exports continuing to falter in the face of weakening global demand – the American economic recovery remains sluggish and could even fall off the approaching fiscal cliff while the eurozone has spiraled into recession yet again – Beijing has embarked on a radical, economic transformation to sustain double digit growth: China will now consume most of its output rather than export it to the developed economies.
Explaining the rationale behind the ‘having your own cake and eating it too’ policy, new Chinese Premier, Xi Jinping, told The Unreal Times: “We can’t wait interminably for the Americans to get back to their high spending ways. If they no longer want our gaudy plastic toys, cheap but unreliable electronic gadgets, and other superflous merchandise, then we’ll consume it ourselves and continue to grow our GDP.”
The Chinese premier added that the Chinese were tired of slogging for the rest of the world but only earning brickbats in return. “Our boys slog their butt off working 18 hours shifts so that Americans can enjoy drop dead retail prices and in return we get labelled as job stealers and currency manipulators. We don’t have to put up with such nonsense any longer,” ruefully added Xi, bitterness creeping into his tone.
In keeping with the new policy, Chinese workers have been ordered to work an extra shift everyday consuming China’s manufacturing output, while the Chinese Central Bank has burned its huge pile of dollar reserves and American bonds.
However, it remains to be seen whether the Chinese government can get the labour force to accept the new set of economic reforms. “We are cool with being over-worked and under-paid, but forcing us to consume our own cheap stuff rather than flooding overseas markets is just not on. We’ll fight it tooth and nail,” warned Yang Yang, a factory worker in Guangzhou province, echoing the sentiments of millions of disgruntled Chinese workers across the country.


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Luckily for those with cash they wish to invest, the stock exchange sell-off has actually produced chances to purchase lower rates. Particularly, if you have $2,000 that you do not expect you will require for requirements for numerous years, Meta Platforms ( FB 3.86%) and Netflix ( NFLX 7.65%) are 2 inexpensive stocks you can purchase now.
Each has actually fallen out of favor with market individuals, and their stocks have actually been penalized. Meta Platforms and Netflix are trading at rates that are the most affordable in numerous years.
Meta Platforms stock is less expensive than ever
Meta Platforms has actually grown to a huge scale. The business previously called Facebook boasts 3.6 billion month-to-month active users throughout its household of apps, consisting of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. That was 9% greater than at the exact same time the previous year. So in spite of its size, it is still broadening.
On the other hand, its stock has perhaps never ever been less expensive At a price-to-free-cash-flow ratio of 13.6 and a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.5, Meta Platforms is a deal today. Definitely, it’s dealing with numerous headwinds, consisting of Apple‘s personal privacy modifications, supply-chain disturbances constraining marketer need, and competitors from Tiktok. Nevertheless, Meta has experience successfully coming to grips with difficulties.
From 2016 to 2021, it has actually grown profits from $28 billion to $118 billion. Keep in mind that offering ads is a profitable company, and Meta has actually broadened its operating earnings from $12 billion to $47 billion because time. Financiers with money on the sidelines can take this chance and purchase Meta Platforms.
Financiers are overreacting to Netflix’s customer downturn
The streaming leader grew at the pandemic’s beginning. Folks caged in the house killed time by binging on streaming material. The tailwind is reversing now that economies are resuming and folks are wanting to invest more time far from house. Netflix shed 200,000 customers in its latest quarter, which ended on March 31. Management has actually anticipated a loss of 2 million more in the 2nd quarter.
The downturn has actually triggered the marketplace to avoid Netflix, and the stock is down 75% off its high. That’s a chance for long-lasting investors to scoop up its shares at a discount rate. The sell-off has Netflix trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.8– the most affordable it’s remained in the last 5 years. On the other hand, the loss of 2 million customers will not be ravaging to Netflix.
Since March 31, it boasted 222 million, which produced $7.9 billion in profits. That’s a yearly run rate of $31.6 billion. Like Meta, Netflix has actually broadened profits and operating earnings at a healthy rate for many years. More particularly, profits increased from $8.8 billion in 2016 to $29 billion in 2021. Because exact same time, running earnings leapt from $380 million to $6.2 billion. Losing approximately 1% of its customers is not most likely to threaten that development. Definitely insufficient to validate the 75% sell-off in the stock.
Nonetheless, the overreaction has actually produced a chance to purchase Netflix at a deal rate.
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Furlong is top marketer at Europcar as Kempston moves to Travelodge
Europcar, the car hire company, has appointed Andy Furlong as its new director of marketing and ecommerce, replacing Catriona Kempston who quit the car hire brand to join budget hotel chain Travelodge six months ago.
Furlong joins from Travelhorizon Group, the European mountain holidays company, where he was chief marketing officer.
He will report to Ken McCall, managing director of Europcar UK Group.
Furlong replaces Kempston, who moved to Travelodge six months ago for an interim period. This week she was confirmed by the brand as the new sales and marketing director.
At Europcar, Kempston built a consumer marketing department and led the brand's relaunch last year, following the company's merger with National and Alamo. Prior to this, Kempston was head of brand marketing at Premier Inn for three years.
At Travelodge, Kempston will report to chief executive Grant Hearn, and is tasked with developing the brand while growing revenue through sales and marketing channels.
Travelodge has had an unsettling year so far – from its financial restructure to its chief executive checking out, the budget hotel brand will need new measures to ensure the business stays competitive in the price-led market.Follow @loullamae_es
This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk
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China’s Consumer-Finance Industry Posts Slower First-Half Growth
Several of China’s biggest licensed consumer-financing companies posted slower profit and revenue growth for the first half amid tightening regulation of the cash loan market and a decline in household income growth.
First-half results were mixed for the 14 licensed consumer-finance enterprises that have reported out of 26 industry players. Merchants Union Consumer Finance Co., Mashang Consumer Finance Co. and Industrial Consumer Finance Co. all posted net profit of more than 100 million yuan ($14.6 million) for the first six months of 2018.
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Yahoo Hong Kong has launched its Yahoo Hong Kong-Taiwan cross-border eCommerce platform today.
In the first stage, more than 100 Taiwanese brands accredited with the Made in Taiwan Smile Logo will enter the Hong Kong market – in categories ranging from food to fashion and to beauty and cosmetics.
Stage two will see Yahoo adding Hong Kong products for sale into Taiwan.
Yahoo says it wants to create the largest cross-border eCommerce network between the two markets.
Jacky Wang, VP, eCommerce group, Yahoo Taiwan & Hong Kong said that with the launch of the new platform, geographical boundaries are eliminated.
“We are delighted to bring Hong Kong consumers the best, original quality products of Taiwan through the 11.11 Online Shopping Festival. This allows e-merchants from both places to reach the huge online buying customer base, which is extremely beneficial to them in increasing sales and for online branding.
“Yahoo Hong Kong’s B2B2C Flagship store will start operating this month, through which Hong Kong consumers can purchase a wide variety of Made In Taiwan products on the platform,” said Wang.
“Soon, Taiwan consumers will also be able to purchase Hong Kong’s popular products, such as cookies and palmiers which are popular with Taiwanese.”
All of the more than 100 Taiwanese e-merchants joining the Yahoo Hong Kong eCommerce platform are selling 100 per cent original, Made In Taiwan Smile logo-accredited quality brands. These include Dr Morita facial masks, Taiwan’s famous pineapple cake brand SunnyHills and other brands, including meat jerky, tea leaves and noodles.
The e-merchants crossing the border to Hong Kong with Yahoo will receive all-round cross-border one-stop merchant solutions from Yahoo Taiwan and Yahoo Hong Kong. These range from a special starter package to support for logistics, cash flow and store operations and management, offering detailed guidance to help their brand to take the initial step in cross-border eCommerce, and satisfying the expectations of the online shoppers in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
SunnyHills has sold more than 10,000 boxes of cakes online into Hong Kong this year already.
Damian Lee, GM, said Yahoo Hong Kong and Taiwan have the highest reach rates and Yahoo’s online shopping platform is the best one in Taiwan.
“With the largest volume of traffic flow and the highest popularity, it offers us the best virtual support for our products and backing for our brand. It also provides one-stop logistics and cash flow solutions that lower our cross-border costs and management time, offering the best O2O eCommerce shopping experience to consumers in the most effective way.”
What Hongkongers and Taiwanese want
Francis Che, head of insights, strategy and research with Yahoo APAC shared the latest eCommerce promotion and analysis research.
- Hong Kong has an online buying population of 2.9 million, representing 53 per cent of the total online population.
- 74 per cent of Hongkongers have used overseas buying services, or overseas cargo or shipping services to buy products from all over the world.
- Over 30 per cent of the online buying population hopes that online buying apps can proactively notify them of the offers and discounts of nearby stores and recommend some stores for purchases.
- The older buying population (aged 40 plus) use mobile devices to browse online shopping sites is growing rapidly.
- The most sought after items purchased online in both markets is the same: Apparel. For the full top 10 list, refer to the chart below:
Meanwhile, Yahoo Hong Kong will launch the 11.11 Online Shopping Festival offers on November 11, including the sale of an Oto Adelle One Massage Chair at just $999 (Value: $14,800), with the Oto Lite Footie (Value: $1680) bundled together as a gift.


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Mangaluru, July 12, 2017; Dakshina Kannada Cooperative Milk Producers’ Union Ltd (DKMUL) has posted Rs 5.58 crore net profit during 2016-17. The annual business turnover was Rs 742 crore, said DKMUL president Raviraj Hegde.
Briefing media persons here on Tuesday, he said that the average milk procurement of the union has touched 3.86 lakh litres and has seen 10% progress during the year. Stating that the work on a dairy unit at Uppur in Udupi district has been taken up at a cost of Rs 95 crore, Hegde said that a sum of Rs 2.50 crore has been earmarked for 2017-18 to install an automation undercloud system in Mangaluru dairy unit. To meet the increase in demand for curd, a 1,000-litre pasteuriser will be purchased at a cost of Rs 50 lakh.
He said that the flavoured milk production unit will be expanded. Flavoured milk will be supplied in pet bottles. The required machinery to pack 30,000 pet bottles in two shifts will be installed at a cost of Rs 1.20 crore. A sum of Rs 20 lakh has been earmarked for purchase of curd packing machines and jumbo machines.
Further, Hegde said that a 20KLPH-capacity automatic de-sludge machine will be purchased during the year at a cost of Rs 165 lakh. With an increase in procurement of milk, the processing time too increases. Separating the cream from milk also takes time, he explained.
A new building, ETP and machinery will be installed at the Puttur cold storage unit at a cost of Rs 1.75 crore. A sum of Rs 5 crore has been earmarked for the purchase of land and building at Puttur. The ETP at Mangaluru will also be upgraded, said the president. The DKMUL has a target to sell 3.49 lakh litres of milk, 55,000 kg of curd in the future, he added.
Green cover /Saplings : He said to increase the green cover, the DKMUL will supply 50 to 100 saplings to farmers through milk societies. A total of 35,000 saplings will be supplied during the year.
Also, a total of 63,620 members have been brought under Aam Aadmi Bima Yojana (Janasri insurance). A sum of Rs 28.20 lakh has been paid as compensation to 71 members for accidents and natural death. In addition, scholarships worth Rs 85.47 lakh has been distributed among the meritorious students under Aam Aadmi Bima Yojna.
Compensations : To a query on theft of cattle belonging to the members of the DKMUL, the president said that if the members furnish copies of the FIR, then a minimum compensation of Rs 5,000 would be given to the victim. Normally, the police file ‘missing’ complaints instead of ‘theft’ complaint.
Last year, the compensation was paid in owners of the cattle in around 18 cases. The president said that he had also written to the Dakshina Kannada superintendent and city police commissioner expressing concern over rise in theft of cattle in the district, and urging to initiate action.


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Sofia’s most famous shopping street, Vitosha Blvd, retains a stable position in the Cushman & Wakefield consultancy ranking on the world’s most expensive shopping streets Main Streets across the World 2017. Vitosha Blvd went down only one position, from 50th place last year to 51 in 2017, among a total of 68 countries around the world. This is the 29th annual edition of the ranking and tracks 451 of the largest retail streets across the world. The list of the world’s 68 most expensive streets includes the streets with the highest rent of commercial areas.
The average annual rental per sq. m. of commercial area on Vitosha Blvd is EUR 552 (or EUR 46 / sq m average monthly rent), according to ranking data. 5th Avenue, the most expensive street in the New York City, in comparison, has an annual average rent of EUR 28,262 / sq. m.
Europe’s most expensive street is New Bond Street in London with an average annual rent of EUR 16 200 / sq. m., which makes it nearly 30 times more expensive than Vitosha in Sofia.
The ranking’s page describes Vitosha Blvd. as a popular and wide pedestrian zone in the city, which makes it attractive for a variety of cafes, bars and restaurants. The commercial areas are occupied by fashion brands in the middle price range, sports and leisure equipment and multiple diverse stores for cosmetics, health and beauty products. According to Forton, Cushman & Wakefield’s strategic partner, the increased demand for areas in the shopping space will continue in the next months, which will also lead to a rent increase.
— Cushman & Wakefield (@CushWake) November 15, 2017
Top 5 in the European ranking are New Bond Street in London, Via Montenapoleone in Milan, Avenue des Champs Élysées in Paris, Via Condotti in Rome and Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich. New York’s 5th Avenue is again the leader in the global ranking, followed by Causeway Bay in Hong Kong. London’s New Bond Street climbed up one position, compared to last year. Fourth and new to the top five is Italy’s Via Montenapoleone, followed by Avenue des Champs Élysées. Of all 68 most expensive streets around the globe, the last in the ranking is again Windhoek in Namibia.
This year’s edition of Main Streets across the World 2017 concludes that today’s consumers do not have much spare time, but have endless options and online shopping channels and are offered more and more helpful technology and concepts for e-purchases. In this context, sellers are faced with increasing challenges in attracting customers to physical stores. Their presence in attractive locations aims not just at generating profits, but at enhancing customer loyalty and ensuring good online sales.


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David and Victoria Beckham stock up on McDonald's Big Mac Special Sauce from eBay during lockdown
David and Victoria Beckham have reportedly been forking out on McDonald’s Big Mac Special Sauce during the coronavirus lockdown.
The fast-food chain’s restaurants have been closed across the UK since Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered the closure of non-essential stores in the UK back in March.
As a result, the Beckhams are said to have turned to consumer sales website eBay to purchase the Big Mac sauce, which was released by McDonald’s earlier this year.
A source exclusively told The Sun: "Everyone has been missing their special thing during lockdown and clearly this is one of the Beckhams’.
"The family are big fans. They’ve got in quite a lot to keep them going for a while. It shows they’re a down-to-earth family despite their lavish lifestyle."
McDonald’s announced earlier this week that 39 drive-thrus in the south-east of England and Dublin were re-opening from Wednesday as the company begins to ease out of lockdown.
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The John Lewis boss aiming to sell voters a different brand of politics
As mayor Andy Street would put the West Midlands on the map, he says
As managing director of John Lewis, Andy Street understood Middle England’s shoppers perfectly, with their desire for reasonably priced Dualit toasters, buggies and Union Jack cushions. They loved his nostalgic Christmas ads but also the convenience of online shopping. In just under ten years he transformed the dowdy, if dependable, retailer into a hugely successful brand. Now he wants to do the same for Birmingham and the West Midlands, as the first mayor for the region in elections on May 4, ensuring that the area, like the retailer, is never knowingly undersold.
We meet in the vast John Lewis by the train station, where he admits that if he sees a piece of rubbish on the shop floor he still feels the urge to pick


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The $41 million mobile app – or the Web bubble debate, now in full color!
Bubble or no bubble?
On Wednesday evening, a photo-sharing app maker called Color opened a spigot of fuel onto the fire when it revealed that it had raised a whopping $41 million before even launching its product.
“Think I might have just heard the bubble pop,” said one of many bewildered tweets that followed the news.
“They may turn out to be the Water World of app startups” said another tweet, referring to the 1995, $175-million-budget Hollywood bomb.
The blog TechCrunch noted that Color’s funding represents the most money that VC firm Sequoia Capital has ever invested in any pre-launch company, including its initial investment in Google.
Of course, Color also won plenty of accolades among the tech intelligentsia.
John Battelle wrote on his blog that Color has the potential to become the first breakout application based on the so-called augmented reality concept. And he lauded Color co-founder Bill Nguyen (who sold his last startup Lala to Apple for a reported $80 million) as “the real deal.”
Fred Wilson, an early investor in Twitter, blogged that Color was “pushing the envelope in social graph construction in an important direction” and that he was eager to begin trying the service, though he reserved judgment on whether it would ultimately become a big deal or not.
Whatever Color’s unique aspects and the distinguished pedigree of its founders, the company is entering a crowded field. Among the many photo sharing apps already out there are Instagram (recently raised $7 million in funding), DailyBooth (recently raised $6 million) and Path (which launched with its own heaping of hype last year thanks to the fact that it was founded by early Facebook employee Dave Morin).
If nothing else, the fact that Color pocketed $41 million before launching a product might represent a turning point in the latest Web industry narrative, which until now has been based on the principle that entrepreneurs no longer need big budgets to launch startups thanks to cloud-based services like Amazon.com’s EC2 and Google Docs.
The only question now, is how long it takes until shares of Color, and its valuation, get bid up by investors in the secondary market…


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Based on a pair of screenshots of the iOS 7 Music app shared on Twitter, it seems that The Netherlands has made it on Apple’s list of upcoming iTunes Radio markets in Europe as one Dutch user reports the Radio tab randomly appearing and disappearing on his device.
Last we heard, Apple was gearing up to expand the service to the United Kingdom following a meeting its iAd director had with London-based ad agencies.
The Cupertino company even banned London-based iTunes Radio rival, a service called Bloom.fm, from its iAd advertising network…
As noted by Twitter user ‘tmnlsthrn’ and evidenced on the screenshots shared on Twitter (here and here), he was able to briefly access the Radio tab inside the stock iOS 7 Music app, before it disappeared again.
“The tab did not show up for me before,” he told me during a quick instant messaging session. You can clearly see the Radio tab on the top left screenshot. After attempting to enable iTunes Radio on his device, he was greeted with a standard message saying the service isn’t available yet.
The Radio tab has then disappeared abruptly from the Music app before re-appearing, only to disappear again. For those wondering, his iOS Settings > General > International > Language is set to Dutch and he’s on a Dutch iTunes Store.
This random on/off behavior indicates that Apple is testing iTunes Radio for Dutch market.
Just don’t interpret this as a sign of iTunes Radio launching imminently in The Netherlands, even though we now know that key European markets are on Apple’s iTunes Radio map.
We observed a similar behavior recently, when several UK-based folks claimed that iTunes Radio was working for them, albeit for a brief period of time.
It’s worth pointing out that the Radio tab only shows up if iTunes Radio is available in a specific country. The way it works, the iOS Music app checks your iTunes account in order to determine whether to show or hide the Radio tab.
To test this, I signed out of my US iTunes account on my iPhone 5s and signed in with a Croatian one. The Radio tab immediately disappeared in the Music app because the service isn’t yet available in my country.
As soon as I signed back in with my US iTunes account, the tab promptly re-appeared, as evidenced on the screenshots shared below.
Music app with Croatian (left) and English (right) iOS language. The Radio tab is nowhere to be seen because I’m signed in with a Croatian iTunes account.
And guess what happens if I switch back to my US iTunes account?
Signing in with a US iTunes account immediately makes iTunes Radio available in the Music app, localized accordingly depending on your iOS language.
iTunes Radio is currently available in the United States and Australia.
By all accounts, iTunes Radio is a staggered release.
The fact that the Radio tab is appearing inside the Music app for some Dutch fans is the strongest indication to date that Apple will be enabling its Internet radio service in the 17 million people market of The Netherlands.
Only time will tell…
If you live in The Netherlands, please check your iPhone’s Music app and let us know in the comments if you see the Radio tab.


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(Xinhua) -- Australia is set to have its most
romantic Valentine’s Day ever on Wednesday, with the
news that a record 10.5 million roses have been imported
over the past two weeks.
According to the The Federal
Department of Agriculture, the majority of the imports
have come from Kenya.
Up 1.25 million on last year, lovesick
Aussie’s have shipped in 6.46 million rose stems from
the African country since the beginning of February.
Although many wives and girlfriends
here may be delighted by the figures, Australia’s
agriculture sector have voiced concerns about the
growing pressure on the domestic flower industry.
Finding it difficult to compete with
cheaper importers, executive officer of the Flower
Association of Australia Shane Holborn told local media
that “rose producers in Australia are a dying breed.”
“We’ve had a substantial number of
them just go out of business or change to another
crop, it’s not easy for them,” he said.
But due to new biosecurity laws being
introduced March 1, next year’s Valentine’s Day could
see a big drop in the number of roses coming from
“In a nutshell, the changes will be
around more fumigation of the product before it
comes into the country, more rigorous checking when
they arrive, and more consistently applied sampling
procedures in all ports of entry,” Holborn


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TOKYO, March 13 (Reuters) – Japanese exporters will hand out bigger bonuses for the next fiscal year as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies drive the yen to multi-year lows, with Toyota Motor Corp declaring its largest bonus payout since the global financial crisis.
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During the last two financial years, the number of Australian consumers using buy now, pay later services has increased by 500% due to aggressive marketing strategies targeting millennials from the likes of Afterpay and Zip, and ASIC wanted to gain a better understanding of the industry and identify consumer risks.
According to the latest ASIC report, there are now 2 million users of the buy now pay later scheme in Australia. It was found out that consumers see the arrangements as easy to use, convenient and less risky than other payment options. Unlike using credit cards, consumers are not charged interest and there are limits on the fees, which may be an upfront fee or account keeping fee.
These arrangements allowed consumers to spend more than they normally would and make more spontaneous purchases, 81% said these arrangements allowed them to buy more expensive items than they could otherwise afford in one payment. When used responsibly, the buy now, pay later system can help certain consumers needing to make a large, necessary purchase they hadn’t ‘budgeted for. Such system might be the answer to help them manage their cash flow.
Here 4 tips for those who want to use buy now, pay later services responsibly:
Build up a cash buffer to limit the use of buy now, pay later
Consider your purchase
Avoid late payments
Use a debit card to manage repayments
Consumers need to be in full control of their finances and use the buy now pay later system responsibly to avoid future debts or inconveniences.
Bye bye credit cards, hello eyeball pay: The future of spending your money Posted on: 25-01-2019
Australia is transforming into a cashless society slowly but surely with consumers today prefering to make digital payment methods for convenience and efficiency.Read More
How Digital Will Change Brick-and-Mortar In 2019 Posted on: 24-01-2019
According to the recent research conducted by PYMNTS Remote Payments Playbook, there is almost 58% chance that a consumer knew what they were going to buy before they even walked into a particular store to make their most recent purchase.Read More
'Love-hate relationship': Retailers hit by the Afterpay Effect Posted on: 19-12-2018
Afterpay has millions of active Australian users, nearly one in 10 Australians - and $2.2 billion in sales. According to the latest report published by ASIC, it was found out that Australian customers, collectively, owe $903 million in buy now, pay laterRead More
Christmas Comes at a Cost for SME Owners Posted on: 17-12-2018
According to the new Small Business Report by Westpac and Deloitte, 58% of small- and medium enterprise (SME) owners said they would miss sleep over the festive season due to work, and 63% doubted they would have a chance to relax or wind down.Read More
Eftpos Gets Square as Battle for Mobile Payments Escalates Posted on: 12-12-2018
Eftpos transactions can now be made on Square terminals at tens of thousands of businesses across Australia thanks to a recent upgrade.Read More


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The brand’s first all-electric vehicle introduces a new era in luxury, technology and zero-tailpipe-emissions performance Cadillac’s introduction of its electric portfolio begins today with the debut of the LYRIQ show car — a dynamic, modern and […]
GM wants to be the Android for EVs. Tesla’s lead in the EV market and revolution has often been compared to how Apple changed the way we have used the phone. It used to be one […]
Aside from Tesla topping the US electric car sales chart (and my postulations about that), there were some other interesting stats and takeaways from March US electric car sales. The first big one that stands out […]
Rolling through another month of US electric car sales, I’m struck again by how much a few models dominate sales. Actually, I’m struck by how much Tesla’s two high-end (expensive) cars dominate US electric car sales. Before […]
Also published on CleanTechnica. See our Electric Car Sales page for a deeper look at US, European, and Chinese electric car sales. US electric car sales jumped approximately 68% in February 2017 vs February 2016. Fully electric car sales were […]
US electric car sales continue to climb to new heights in 2017. Growing 59% year over year (YoY), approximately 12,000 electric cars were sold across the country in January, accounting for approximately 1% of US auto sales.
The EV market as a whole saw 30% growth for 2016 (compared to 2016) and 51% for December 2016 (compared to December 2015), which would be great for normal cars but may seem a bit weak on the surface for those of us who know how fast EV sales should and could be growing. But remember that 2016 was more of a prep year than a breakout year. This year (2017) and next (2018) are likely to be the big breakout years, thanks to the real arrival of the Chevy Bolt and the expected arrival of the Tesla Model 3.
Also published on CleanTechnica and our Electric Car Sales page. The top 5 electric car models continue to dominate US electric car sales … for now. The Chevy Bolt hitting the market is sure to shake […]
This article is simultaneously being published on CleanTechnica and on our Electric Car Sales page. US electric car sales continue to trend up, even despite many buyers holding out for a coming Chevy Bolt or Tesla Model 3. […]
For a road trip from Tampa (FL) to Cocoa (FL), the best option on the lot after some last-minute changes to our plans was a Cadillac XTS luxury sedan. While it wasn’t what we would have […]
This article is simultaneously being published on CleanTechnica and on our Electric Car Sales page. Numbers are in, and not a great deal has changed in the US electric car market since July, but it is […]
Energy independence is creeping into the US passenger car market more and more, led by Tesla Motors but also by ZEV mandates in 9 states and resulting EV efforts from a few auto companies. In the month of July, […]
After owning a Tesla, is it possible to go back to a regular old internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle? A Tesla Model S owner on the Tesla Motors Club forum recently recounted his experiences using a Cadillac […]
US electric car sales rose slightly (2.1%) in June 2016 compared to June 2015, but were up 8.5% for the year through June. That said, fully electric cars were down 35% in June, and 11% for the […]
The European Alternative Fuels Observatory recently reached out to let me know about the fascinating electric car data it aggregates and organizes for the European market. Its website is a treasure trove of fun electric car […]


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Posted on | July 26, 2012
Written by | BevNetwork
On June 28th, Select Wines of Romania hosted a Grand Tasting and Seminar at Astor Center. Christy Canterbury, MW, led a seminar to introduce attendees to Romania’s leading indigenous grapes—Feteasca Neagra, Babeasca Neagra and Tamaioasa Romaneasca. Afterward, members of press and trade attended a tasting which featured five of Romania’s top vineyards.


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Repossessed shops and offices could be auctioned online with the arrival of a British version of America’s Auction.com early next year.
The auction house has teamed up with LNR Property and the loan servicer Hatfield Philips to help banks and institutions to sell distressed commercial properties and real estate loans.
In America, Auction.com offers everything from houses to shopping centres, as well as property loans, selling 34,000 homes last year and aiming to sell 45,000 this year. In April it carried out America’s biggest commercial real estate auction, selling $1 billion (£633 million) worth of assets in Nevada.
Ken Rivkin, the managing director of Auction.com, told The Times it had sold more than $10 billion of assets online since 2007 and had more than four…


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Countdown begins to a Leyland food celebration with its annual festival
Leyland's festival of food is back this weekend.
Now in its fourth year, the Taste of Leyland on Saturday will feature delicious cuisines from around the world - and nearer home - offering something to suit everyone.
It starts at 10am in Balfour Court next to Leyland Market and runs until 4pm.
With the focus squarely on supporting Leyland’s fantastic food businesses, Taste of Leyland boasts cuisines from British, Italian and Chinese, to name a few, as well as the usual array of cheeses, ales, and chutneys.
There will be live music, a barbecue, children’s activities and countless stallholders selling amazing, fresh, local produce, as the event promises to be another great family day out in South Ribble.
Councillor Michael Green, cabinet member for corporate support and community engagement at South Ribble Borough Council, said: “The Taste of Leyland food festival has become one of the borough’s most popular events - and it’s certainly one I look forward to every year.
“It’s all about celebrating Leyland’s exciting mix of food outlets, businesses, ale houses and homemade produce.
“On Saturday, you’ll find flavours from around the world; as well as live music, children’s activities, and something to take home or give as a gift, such as cheeses, ales and chutneys.
“I’m certain we’ll get a great crowd for the event - but if you still need persuading, let me just say, there will also be a barbecue, Italian food, Chinese food, and a stall devoted to desserts - something for everyone and all the family at affordable prices, too.”
Children’s activities at the festival will include face painting, cake decorating, glitter hair, and bookmark making.
Pennine Events will also be inviting you to try the Smoothie Bike at the fruit ‘n’ veg stall - it blends fruit for your smoothie as your pedalling powers the blades.
Hough Lane’s Market Ale House have also organised live music from 11.30am, with acts including Rosa, Kev Jameson, and Phil Ireland.
The council is also running a marquee for food-based art activities and a drumming workshop with local community arts group Creative Hands.
Karen Shaw, economic development officer at South Ribble Borough Council, said: “2018 has already been a fabulous year for us, especially in terms of cultural events and supporting the local economy.
“The artisan Worden Market was such a hit, Leyland Festival did not disappoint, and now, Taste of Leyland is back to show how brilliant our independent food businesses are here in South Ribble.
“I’m very pleased that all the businesses continue to get behind these events, and in turn, everyone from around the borough keeps on supporting them.
“We’re so grateful to residents and businesses alike.
“My message to everyone this weekend is shop local, stay in Leyland and avoid the Bank Holiday traffic and support the amazing independent retailers on your very doorstep and sample all the incredible food and drink they have to offer.”
For more updates on Facebook, go to https://www.facebook.com/ATasteofLeyland/ or join the event at https://www.facebook.com/events/636764200043516/.


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SHANGHAI, China – For customers who don’t want to drive to a convenience store and don’t want to order online for delivery, there’s a third choice: Summon the convenience store to come to you. Wheely’s Moby self-driving convenience store run by artificial intelligence launched in a beta test this week in Shanghai, New Atlas reports.
Wheely’s has become known for its bicycle coffee cafes. Now the Swedish company has unveiled Moby, its concept traveling convenience store. The initial design includes a driver or remote control guidance, but eventually, Wheely’s hopes to have individual Moby stores traveling on autonomously. Wheely’s developed the prototype with China’s Hefei University and Himalayafy.
Similar to its Wheely 24/7 unmanned convenience stores design, customers access Moby via the Wheely app, which also scans the items to be purchased and automatically charges the credit card account on file. Moby stores also come with four drones on the roof, which can deliver packages to consumers along a designated route.
The Moby units will also keep track of inventory and battery charges automatically. Stock can be replenished from other units as needed. One side of the kiosk features a television screen, which is used as billboards. Other add-ons will include a pharmacy and first aid kit with defibrillator for emergencies.
“The biggest costs to have a store are the place itself to rent in a central city–it’s ultra-expensive–and then staff is really expensive, and we’re removing both of these at the same time,” said Tomas Mazetti, one of the founders of Wheelys, in Fast Company. “I grew up in the countryside in Northern Sweden. … The last store closed there in the 1980s sometime, and after that, everyone just commuted into the city, but that takes an hour. A little piece of the village died. Now, suddenly, in a place like that, the village can team up and buy one of these stores. If the village is really small, [the store] can move around to different villages.”