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We’re more than nine years into a bull market, and it’s no secret that stocks are expensive. The Shiller price/earnings ratio, which compares companies’ share prices with their inflation-adjusted 10-year earnings average, is at 31, well above the historical median of 16—a sign that future returns will be sluggish. Combine that with simmering worries about trade wars and inflation, and you get a climate in which fewer investors are clicking the “buy” button.
Yet there’s one group purchasing company shares with gusto: the companies themselves. As the impact of new tax cuts circulates through corporate balance sheets, businesses are getting an infusion of cash, and much of the windfall is going toward buying back stock. J.P. Morgan estimates that repurchases in 2018 will jump 51% from last year’s mark, to $800 billion, which would be a single-
Historically, buyback announcements have attracted investors like a plate of snickerdoodles does a kindergartner. Repurchases reduce the number of shares outstanding, giving each remaining shareholder a bigger share of future earnings—and thus making price appreciation more likely.
That’s the theory, anyway. But for many companies, it hasn’t quite worked out that way, says Gregory Milano, CEO of financial consultancy Fortuna Advisors. Since 2011, Fortuna has calculated a “buyback ROI,” or return on investment, which tracks post-buyback stock prices and other data points to measure the effectiveness of corporate repurchases. And over the five years through 2017, the 353 companies that spent significantly on buybacks underperformed the market on average. Their median ROI was 13.8% annually, including dividends, while the S&P 500’s return was 15.8%.
Fortuna Advisors, a financial consulting firm that compiles a buyback scorecard, has a particularly sobering assessment of the strategy’s effectiveness. (To see one of Fortuna’s most recent buyback reports, click here.)
Why the meh results? Critics point to a misallocation of capital: Money spent on buybacks is money that isn’t invested in projects that fuel longer-term success. For his part, Milano notes that the main factor in an effective buyback is simply good timing—and low ROIs often signal that the company bought at an expensive markup. Case in point: Chipotle, which landed dead last on Fortuna’s list. The company spent heavily on share repurchases in the first quarter of 2016, at the height of the fallout from its E. coli scare. But even then, the stock had a sky-high valuation, and shares have fallen further in the interim, giving the company an ROI of minus 23%.
How to confront this conundrum?
With stocks in general still trading so high, investors are best off ignoring the short-term hype around buyback announcements and instead taking a closer look at companies on repurchasing binges to see if their share prices have more room to run. Here are three that fit the bill.
As part of a three-year, $1.2 billion campaign, Foot Locker bought back $300 million worth of shares in the third quarter of 2017. The company got them cheap, because the stock was near the bottom of a fall of more than 60%. The cause? Nike, which accounts for about 65% of Foot Locker’s inventory, had a number of underperforming product lines in 2017. But analysts predict a comeback for the retailer. “Foot Locker should certainly benefit” from better-selling Nike footwear and clothing lines hitting the market this year, says Wedbush’s Christopher Svezia. And it’s a savvy way for investors to tap Nike’s growth, too, since its stock trades at a discount of more than 40% to the athletic giant’s.
Boeing has been feeling turbulence from the tariff battle between President Trump and China: About 25% of Boeing’s airplanes go to Chinese buyers. But the benefits of recent tax cuts may more than offset any trade damage. One vignette of the tax impact: When developing the 787, Boeing wrote off the expense at the then-prevailing 35% tax rate; now that it’s selling the planes, it owes tax of only 21% on the profits. Boeing recently announced an $18 billion repurchase program, and thanks to a thriving airplane market, there’s a “buying environment” for the stock, says Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr.
Digital-memory specialist Micron Technology was one of Fortuna’s better buyback ROI performers—and though its most recent repurchasing campaign tailed off at the end of 2016, it’s still worth a look. Its performance has long been tied to Apple’s iPhone, which uses its chips for short-term memory. But last year, Micron began reaping more revenue from cloud computing. And the arrival of the faster wireless protocol known as 5G is expected to create even more demand for its products. “5G could move Micron out of the Apple cycle,” says SIG analyst Mehdi Hosseini.
At today’s prices, investors may want to simply stay out of the repurchasing game. One company that has done the same: Charles Schwab, which hasn’t done a buyback since the Great Recession. As its balance sheet recovered, Schwab reinvested heavily in technology and in its consumer bank, Schwab Bank—which has gone from $49 billion in assets in 2010 to $199 billion today. It now accounts for nearly half the company’s revenue, and it generates income more predictably than Schwab’s commission-heavy businesses, like its self-directed brokerage, says Steven Chubak, an analyst at Nomura Instinet. The financial sector paid out $124 billion in repurchases in 2017, but Schwab has no plans to join that parade this year.


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McHENRY – Flea market operators say a proposed $1,400 annual city license fee could drive them and their vendors out of business.
“We may have to move. We’re a marginal business. We don’t make a lot of money here,” said Edwina Nevitt, owner of Fox River Flea Market. “To be honest, it seems like [the city] doesn’t want us here and wants to put us out of business.”
The issue is up for a vote at Monday night’s City Council meeting. Other than zoning rules, McHenry does not have specific regulations governing flea markets.
If passed, the fee will take effect in May. Flea market operators can pay the $1,400 license fee in a lump sum or in four quarterly installments of $350. It also requires operators to provide proof of applicable federal and state licenses before receiving a McHenry license to operate.
Since fall, the city’s Community Development Committee has worked to spell out licensing and operation rules.
The committee initially focused on imposing daily fees on individual vendors, but flea market operators Eckel’s McHenry Flea Market and Fox River Flea Market said imposing daily fees on vendors was excessive.
Under the proposal, McHenry police will have “general supervision over all flea market operations and shall also have power to inspect their respective places of business.” Police, during normal business hours at the site, would have authority to inspect record books, computers, inventory directly related to the purchases and sale of articles.
“Articles which the [police or other law enforcement agency] have reasonable grounds to believe were stolen may be impounded or left with the vendor under a hold order at the discretion of any member of the police department,” it states.
A flea market, according to the city, is defined as “any business activities commonly known as but not limited to swap shops, penny markets, rummage sales, and where tangible articles are bought, sold or exchanged by more than one vendor, not otherwise regulated in the City of McHenry Municipal Code.”
Resale and secondhand shops and garage sales are exempt.
“Right now, we’re struggling as it is,” said Carl Eckel, Eckel’s McHenry Flea Market owner. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. Me, myself, what I earn annually is between $1,000 and $1,500. And then [subtract] the 7.5 percent sales tax.”
Eckel’s McHenry Flea Market, 3705 W. Elm St., currently has about 35 vendors working the site, with space for 50 additional vendors, he said.
At Fox River Flea Market, 3017 W. Route 120, the number of vendors fluctuates between about 40 to 70 throughout the year.
Most vendors are “in it either because they’re disabled somehow and can’t work or retired and trying to make a couple extra bucks,” Nevitt said.
If you go:
McHenry City Council
When: 7:30 p.m. Monday
Where: McHenry Municipal Center, 333 S. Green St., McHenry

domain: news


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Chinese electronics firm Huawei on Thursday unveiled its most recent Mate 9 smartphone in Munich, made to challenge international industry leaders Apple and Samsung with features such as a high-quality camera and higher-capacity battery.
s Korea's Samsung struggles with damaging publicity following the high-profile recall of its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone in response to reports of it catching fire and exploding, Huawei has scented an opportunity.
Standing in front of a graphic comparing how hot the new phone gets though charging compared using a Samsung handset, Huawei customer electronics chief Richard Yu jokingly promised "no explosions!" when charging the Mate 9-to a burst of laughter in the crowd gathered at a hotel within the German city.
Huawei has set itself the ambitious target of becoming the biggest smartphone maker by market share inside three to four years.
Based on marketplace analysis firm IDC, Huawei held 9.three % from the global market place inside the second quarter of 2016, placing it third behind Samsung with 22.eight % and Apple with 11.7 percent.
But Huawei holds the number one particular spot in its residence industry China and says it really is creating inroads into European markets such as Spain and Italy, exactly where consumers frequently invest in phones and SIM cards separately as opposed to bundled from their network operator.
Partnerships with high-end German firms, such as Leica for camera lenses along with a luxury Porsche Design version of the Mate 9, are aimed at moving perceptions with the Chinese firm beyond its lower-end origins.
But Yu highlighted a slew of hardware and computer software capabilities developed in-house by Huawei, which he said allowed for improved processing and gaming functionality, longer battery life and faster charging.
"The most significant part of this telephone is speed," he told the blue-lit conference hall.
He claimed that the telephone would launch preferred apps like WhatsApp and Twitter about 50 percent quicker than competing models from Apple and Samsung.
Computer software constructed in to the phone also aims to prevent efficiency slowing down over time as users set up much more apps and fill the phone with information.


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On the final day of VMK, Disney is urging players to log in and say farewell to the Imagineers who made the Web site.
Disney’s VirtualMagicKingdom.com will shut down at 10 p.m. today. The free social gaming site lets players choose and style avatars, chat with other players and play games. In a statement, Disney officials said the site’s performance exceeded expectations, but the time had come to shut it down.
And for the final day, the game creators (known in VMK as Yavn, PirateVinnie, TikiT and MatteeKay) will be in “It’s Picture Taking Time!” rooms 1 and 2 from 3 to 5 p.m. PST, according to the online VMK newsletter. The newsletter says the staff will also be in the game at various time’s before “VMK’s finale” — and the Imagineers can be recognized by the staff badge in their player profile.
– Image from the VMK Newsletter shows some of the VMK staff avatars (online characters).
- Disney’s Virtual Magic Kingdom explained by virtual world expert
- Fans protest end of virtual Disney site in front of Disneyland
- Fans will protest endng of Virtual Magic Kingdom at Disneyland and online
- Save VMK movement now set to music
- Virtual Magic Kingdom closure brings out fans
- Virtual Magic Kingdom will end May 21, frustrating some fans


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Hornsea-based Heald Ltd is starting a recruitment drive to add to its 38-strong workforce as the company gears up for growth.
The company is a specialist manufacturer of road blockers and bollards, is recruiting for a variety of roles in design, engineering and sales. It’s to meet the demand for British-made, innovative, hostile vehicle mitigation solutions to protect buildings and pedestrianised areas from vehicle attacks.
The company, who have been presented with multiple awards for innovation, business and export over the past year, including more recent shortlists in the Yorkshire Coast Business Awards and the Yorkshire Post Business Awards, are one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of hostile vehicle mitigation solutions.
MD Debbie Heald said: “Vehicles are fast becoming the weapon of choice when it comes to both terrorist attacks and ram-raids, and it is therefore even more crucial that the products on the market minimise the devastation such attacks can cause”.
Set up in 1986, Heald Ltd designs, makes and installs a range of hostile vehicle mitigation systems. It’s an international company, but is still a family business and has grown to be largest manufacturer of quality security equipment in the UK, with about 70% of products and services exported.


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Pensions paid through Egypt Post increased 4.3% in the first quarter (Q1) of 2015 to 5.06m pensions, compared to 4.8m pensions in 2014, according to a Ministry of Communication and Information Technology report.
The report, issued in July, also revealed an increase in the number of companies working in the communications, information technology, and added-value sector over the first three months of this year. The increase amounted to 11.1% compared to the same period last year.
Information technology companies acquired the highest share of companies working in the sector, at 77.1%. The added-value companies’ share in the sector was at 15.7%, while communications companies acquired 7.1%.
The report indicated that communications companies had the highest percentage of the total issued capitals in the entire sector, at 78%. The issued capitals of information technology companies were 18.5% of the total, while added-value companies acquired 3.4%.
The report also showed that the number of mobile phone users decreased during April. The decrease amounted to 9% compared to the same period last year. Mobile phone users during April reached 96 million, instead of 101.9 million users during April 2014. The percentage of Internet users among the population declined from 120.2% to 111.2%.
Source: Daily News Egypt


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To understand the ripple effects of the collapse in traditional retail, look no further than Elmira, N.Y. The surrounding county, famed for its trail-blazing mall, is more exposed to 2017’s brick-and-mortar carnage than almost anywhere in the U.S.
NYS Entity Status
NYS Filing Date
MAY 07, 2014
NYS DOS ID#
NYS Entity Type
DOMESTIC BUSINESS CORPORATION
2014 - LV NAIL SPA INC
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Abandoned infant survived 3 days in plastic bagELMIRA, N.Y. (AP) — Authorities say an 8-month-old baby found alive in a plastic bag outside an upstate New York home had been abandoned there three days earlier by her 17-year-old mother.Later Tuesday, police charged Harriette Hoyt with attempted murder.
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The US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has signed a cooperative research and development agreement with Google to develop chips for researchers. The chips the researchers will use in the development of new nanotechnology and semiconductor devices will be manufactured by Skywater Technology. The Alphabet-owned company will pay the initial cost of setting up production and subsidize the first production run. The announcement comes soon after the US passed the CHIPS and Science Act, which aims to boost semiconductor research and manufacturing in the country.
according to a blog post By NIST, the US government agency has entered into an agreement with Google to develop and produce chips that researchers can use to develop new nanotechnology and semiconductor devices.
NIST will design the circuitry for the chips with university research partners such as the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, George Washington University, Brown University and Carnegie Mellon University. The chips will be manufactured by Skywater Technology at the Semiconductor Foundry in Bloomington, Minnesota.
The search giant will bear the initial cost of setting up production and will provide subsidies to run production first.
The Department of Commerce said, “NIST expects to design 40 different chips optimized for different applications. Because the chip designs will be open source, researchers can pursue new ideas without restriction and independently develop data and device designs.” Will be able to share.”
US President Joe Biden recently signed an order to implement the Chips Act of 2022, which provides $52.7 billion (about Rs 4,21,000 crore) in subsidies to encourage manufacturing and research of semiconductors in the US. does. It is also expected to boost the country’s competitive efforts against China’s science and technological development.


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- Two US senators have lobbied to ban the American government from doing business with chip makers in China.
- They have pushed for an amendment blocking federal access to semiconductor products and services made by Chinese companies, to enter the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act this year.
In the United States (US), only one bill in Congress makes it into law every year: the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Because the bill is reliably passed every year, lawmakers annually try to get what issues they are passionate about to be added to the bill in the hope that it becomes law. The NDAA in the US is even a frequent tool for China-related provisions that have strong bipartisan support.
That said, and the US-China conflict took place centering around the final semiconductortwo US senators have been lobbying hard for restrictions on the government’s business with Chinese chipmakers, report Thursday by Politics shows, citing three people familiar with the problem. Indeed, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. John Cornyn has proposed an amendment that would block federal access to semiconductor products and services made by Chinese firms.
Since they got their proposal to the Senate NDAA last month in the October managers’ package, they are now working to sign the final version of the NDAA this year. “The measure will expand the provisions in Article 889 which has banned government agencies from doing business with Chinese telecommunications companies or contractors that use their technology,” Politics the report shows.
What does Section 889 of the NDAA mean for US-China relations?
First passed in the 2019 NDAA, Section 889 is primarily targeted Chinese conglomerates like Huawei or ZTE. Now, Schumer-Cornyn measures will grow the target list including chip players China Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp. and ChangXin Memory Technologies.
Apparently, both the Senate and the House of Representatives are now disputing over the final version of the must-pass defense bill. In essence, the amendments that could be passed could chart their course and lead to a clash between lawmakers who each want their priorities to be reflected in the behemoth legislation. Politico’s Reports also indicate that it is not yet clear if Schumer and Cornyn will be successful in their efforts, but it should be noted that there is bipartisan support for ending the federal government’s business with Chinese companies.
What helps the case is that Schumer is the chamber’s top official. Whatever is said and done, the fiscal 2023 NDAA must pass the Senate and House of Representatives later this year before it can be sent to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into law. Of the aforementioned Chinese chip makers, YMTC in particular has come under increasing scrutiny for violating export controls by continuing to supply chips to Huawei and aiming to do business with Apple.
It was Schumer and Cornyntogether with Senators from both parties, who had railed against our firm moves. Apple even dropped its plans to use YMTC chips in October under enormous bipartisan political pressure. The US has even added YMTC to its “unverified list” – which features US companies that cannot be trusted to check to make sure they follow export rules.
Apparently, the Chinese chip company is now at risk of going on the Entity List in December, basically prohibiting YMTC from trading in the US. News about the NDAA amendment by Schumer and Cornyn came just a month after the Biden administration was announced set sweeping export controlincluding measurements for be cut China’s semiconductor chips are certainly made anywhere in the world with US equipment.
Responding to the move by the US, officials from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). I that’s a harder one decoupling could cost US semiconductor companies 18% of their global market share, 37% of their revenue, and up to 40,000 jobs. In 2021, Chinese state media Notes, Intel’s income was $74.7 billion, of which 30 percent was from China. The PRC even stated that the subsidies from the CHIPS Act would be enough to lure companies away from the Chinese market.


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In this video interview from RoboBusiness 2017, Harmonic Drive CEO Doug Olson discusses the growth of the industry and how precision robot components are enabling a wider range of applications.
High-quality robot components can be found in factory automation, deep space, and a tech frontier that’s just as challenging — the home. As we discussed at RoboBusiness 2017 late last month in Santa Clara, Calif., precision drives are necessary ingredients for successful, robust robotics products.
In the video below, Doug Olson, president and CEO of Harmonic Drive LLC, talks with Robotics Business Review about how the entire robotics industry uses his company’s strain-wave gears. He describes Harmonic Drive’s robot components as the “paint” that enables automation suppliers and end users to “paint a Rembrandt” in terms of performance and applications.
Some examples include collaborative robots and a prototype of an arm that Motiv Space Systems is building for the Mars 2020 mission [see image above], according to Olson. Although Harmonic Drive has been making precision parts since 1960, automation has blossomed in recent years, thanks to cheaper and better processing, sensors, and artificial intelligence.
Olson notes that Harmonic Drive now supplies robot components for semiconductor manufacturing, surgical robotics, laboratory automation, and spaceflight. Consumer and household robots have yet to mature, but Olson agrees that the demographics of aging populations should lead to even higher demand in the future.
Harmonic Drive’s experience with commercial robotics also makes it an excellent partner for customization, Olson says.
The company’s decades of experience are also reflected in its third-annual C. Walton Musser networking event at RoboBusiness. Musser was a prolific inventor and founder of Harmonic Drive, and he would have been pleased to see the entire robotics and AI ecosystem coming together, explains Olson.
In addition, Olson observes other key takeaways from this year’s RoboBusiness, including the Market Forecast by ABI Research’s Dan Kara, which predicted continued industry growth.
To that end, Harmonic Drive plans to increase its production from 95,000 units per month now to 115,000 per month by early 2018 and 400,000 per month by 2020. The company is investing $300 million in the expansion, including new plants in Japan and Massachusetts.
“The best is yet to come!” says Olson about the market’s bright prospects.[note style=”success” show_icon=”true”]
More About Robot Components and RoboBusiness 2017:
- Webcast: Next-Generation Warehouse Automation Provides Speed and Flexibility
- How to Design Robots for Adoptability, Automation Use Cases
- Why Robotics Controls and Components Should Matter to You
- Josh Inman of Kollmorgen Discusses Chinese Cobot Market, RoboBusiness
- UnitDoseOne Named Pitchfire 2017 Winner at RoboBusiness
- Automation Market Still Booming in North America, Says A3
- NASA Again Relies on maxon Technology for Mars 2020 Rover
- Pick and Place for Profit: Using Robot Labor to Save Money
- Humanoid Robots Change Hands: SoftBank Buys Boston Dynamics, Schaft From Google


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Airbnb fights house by house with local rivals in China
Competition from local rivals is a key problem for Airbnb as it tries to pull off what Uber spent more than USD 2 billion failing to do: cracking the China market.
Although Airbnb has 3 million listings globally, it had only 80,000 on the mainland in 2016. Tujia, which combined its listings with those of Chinese online travel giant Ctrip, boasts 400,000 properties with an additional 300,000 on its low-priced Mayi.com unit. Another Chinese player Xiaozhu.com has 200,000 properties in more than 300 cities.
And with local companies drawing venture capital—Tujia has raised RMB 2.8 billion yuan (USD 412 million), Xiaozhu has raised USD 150 million, and both are in talks to secure substantially more—competition is set to get even tougher.
Airbnb says it plans to double its spending in China in the next year. The company prides itself on being global, when all other home-sharing platforms in China offer serviced apartments or spaces in vacant buildings and struggle to build a network outside of China.
While Airbnb doesn’t disclose its revenue, it became profitable in 2016 when annual revenue grew more than 80%, says a person close to the company.
Rivals say Airbnb’s global experience will go only so far in helping it tap that market. Airbnb “only brings foreign travelers, so the booking density is much lower than domestic players like ourselves,” says Zhuang Hai, president of Beijing-based Tujia. “Most of the [short-term rental] travel is going to come from domestic customers looking for domestic properties.”
Tujia’s site, crammed with prices and pictures, can seem chaotic to Western users familiar with Airbnb’s layout, but it contains information many Chinese find vital. Beijing, for instance, is a hodgepodge of business districts—many with a specialty such as commerce, tech, or the arts—so Tujia lets users sort listings by such needs. Patients coming to Beijing’s hospitals can pick from a list of neighborhoods near medical facilities. And travelers wanting to avoid the capital’s notorious traffic can sort listings by proximity to subway lines serving specific attractions, such as Line 4 for the Summer Palace.
Sandy Shen, a research director at Gartner Inc. in Shanghai, says Airbnb needs to increase its number of listings and offer a variety of prices to attract more domestic travelers. “The challenge is to make the listings more appealing in terms of design, services, and pricing for locals.” Shen says.
But listings totals in China may not provide the whole picture. Internal documents reviewed by Bloomberg in December showed that about 1% of Tujia’s listings were occupied at any given time, and it made less than USD 2 million in revenue in the three months ended June 2016. Zhuang said in December that revenue numbers are misleading and that volume of transactions is most important.
Short-term shared housing occupies a gray area in China, neither legal nor illegal. Boosting government relations there involves attending banquets and conferences backed by provincial politicians and facilitating numerous office visits by dignitaries, something locals have been doing to help gain official standing. And starting last year, Airbnb has signed tourism partnerships with some major Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Shen says the difficulty of grasping the peculiarities of the mainland leads many companies entering China to team up with a local business. Airbnb held meetings in August about acquiring Xiaozhu, but the talks didn’t result in a deal. The U.S. company also has shown a willingness to adjust to Chinese rules.
Xiaozhu has worked closely with landlords in China to make its properties more appealing. “We’d help with renovations, decorations, installing smart locks—sometimes even our staff would get into it,” says Chief Executive Officer Kelvin Chen. “They used to joke that they thought they’d be joining an internet platform and instead wound up working in a renovations company.” He says Airbnb “can’t beat us” when it comes to such offline services that local rivals provide.
China’s short-term home rental market is projected to reach RMB 17 billion (USD 2.5 billion) a year by 2018, nearly double the current level.
Read original article


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Nintendo announced some great content for European Wii and 3DS owners this March. It seems a lot of that content will be hitting the U.S. 3DS eShop as well.
Nintendo of America announced today their lineup for the Nintendo 3DS eShop for the month of March. There’s some big games coming this month, with one of the biggest additions being the classic Game Gear games that will be heading toward the European eShop as well.
The major game release this month will be Ketzal’s Corridors, an Aztec-themed action-puzzle game. All we know is that its a shape-matching puzzle game. Sounds pretty generic, but Nintendo is really pushing it so it must have something special.
The Game Gear games being offered are the same as those being offered in Europe with the initial offering including Sonic the Hedgehog: Triple Trouble, Shinobi and Dragon Crystal.
The major NES release this month will be Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream (Mike Tyson). I never was much a fan, but I really hope they get Mike Tyson’s likeness back one day for the Punch-Out!! franchise. It will launch on March 8.
eShop games built specifically for the 3DS are getting a boost this month with Fun! Fun! Minigolf TOUCH! which sounds like a bad Japanese game show, but it claims to be a regular golf game. I still think it’s a Japanese game show, but we’ll find out on March 8.
Zombie Slayer Diox is apparently the 3DS sequel to Rock of the Dead as both games come from the same publisher. Zombie Slayer Diox, however, features a samurai guitarist that kills zombies with his impressive rock skills. You can rock zombies to death starting March 22.
Arc Style Soccer!! 3D comes from the fine folks at ArcSystem Works who have traded in the crazy fighting antics of BlazBlue to create a soccer game. It’s no FIFA, but it should appease the three soccer fans remaining in the U.S. It will be available sometime in March or April.
Two demos of retail 3DS games will also release on the store this month with Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure and Crush 3D vying for your attention and your money.
It looks like Nintendo is getting serious about supporting the eShop, but they were this aggressive with the launch of the Virtual Console as well. The true test will be how long Nintendo supports the service a few years down the road.


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Voice broadcasting is not only cost saving but also quite effective in generating leads, besides a host of other uses. Get latest release of full-featured Hodusoft voice broadcasting software and watch it pay for itself. - May 15, 2019 - Hodusoft Pvt. Ltd.
The redesigned Y42700WB Log Periodic Antenna from Mobile Mark Antenna Solutions, now provides wideband coverage from 600-6000 MHz.
This antenna provides coverage across all Cellular bands, from the new Band 71 at 600 MHz up to the former WiMAX bands at 2.7 & 3.5 GHz. The Y42700WB is also 5G-ready... - May 14, 2019 - Mobile Mark, Inc.
Mobile Mark Antenna Solutions has introduced a new FirstNet & Multiband Fleet Management Mobile Antenna in the sleek, aerodynamic “MaxFin” housing. The MXF702 features a stylish combination of matte & polished finish and provides a sleek, high-tech look on the vehicle.
This multiband... - May 11, 2019 - Mobile Mark, Inc.
KASI’s founder, Yannick Lefang, will be speaking at the fourth edition of the VivaTech conference taking place in Paris on 16-18 May 2019. At this conference, he will be speaking on the topic of getting to know Africa’s Customers.
Yannick who is a pioneer of African-based data will share... - May 10, 2019 - KASI Insight
The MIX token is designed to decentralize streaming, gaming, and social networking. MIX crypto token will facilitate fast transactions and reward Streamix platform users. - May 07, 2019 - Streamix
Huckworthy and Boeing have successfully completed the three-year US DoD Mentor-Protégé Program for Small Businesses, under which The Boeing Company has mentored Huckworthy in business and product improvements for government clients. - May 06, 2019 - Huckworthy LLC
ECT increased both its revenue and profit (EBT) significantly in 2018. The company also closed the year with an exceptionally high level of liquidity and full order books for 2019: Currently, ECT already has a service contract and sales order backlog in excess of 11 million Euro. - May 06, 2019 - European Computer Telecoms
Electro Standards Laboratories has launched an improved website to assist in the secure, online purchasing of Copper and Fiber Optic Network Switches, Interface Converters, Data Acquisition Products and Cable Assemblies. - May 03, 2019 - Electro Standards Laboratories
First Responders on FirstNet Can Now Access GD e-Bridge via the FirstNetApp Catalog - May 02, 2019 - GD (General Devices)
Cloudonix, the game-changing cloud communications backbone, is pleased to announce having been named one of CIO Review’s Top 100 Tech Startups for 2019. CIO Review is a magazine that covers the technology industry, including industry trends, software and services, and IT. The magazine, founded... - May 01, 2019 - Cloudonix
Jimmy Curtin of Next Level Sales Performance will lead TAP’s national new business development and provide strategic support for national customer accounts. - May 01, 2019 - theAppPlace (TAP) Innovations
Incognito Mode Online: Not as Private as You Think - April 29, 2019 - NordVPN
Hodusoft announced inclusion of multi-lingual capability in its hosted IP PBX solution, making it even more versatile for ITSPs aiming to capture clients across various geographic locations. - April 27, 2019 - Hodusoft Pvt. Ltd.
Product Aids in Helping Hospitals and Physicians Meet Government’s Goal to Efficiently Use Technology - April 25, 2019 - KaZee Inc.
NordVPN Warns Customers of E-Commerce Sites to be Vigilant While Shopping Online - April 25, 2019 - NordVPN
As the leading award winner for newspapers in Brooklyn, the Red Hook Star-Revue collected three statewide awards for newspaper excellence at the 166th annual convention of the New York Press Association (NYPA). The Star-Revue captured Best Spot News Coverage, Best Feature Story and best Innovative Ad Project for the paper’s online media kit. - April 20, 2019 - Red Hook Star-Revue
ALYNETECH LLC today announced it has been selected by Wildix, a WebRTC unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) provider, to deliver national and international voice capabilities to SMB & enterprise customers. Wildix's WebRTC UC&C solution, now packaged with ALYNETECH SIP (powered by Clearfly) solution, will enable customers to seamlessly make and receive high-quality in and outbound calls via its cloud communications platform. - April 19, 2019 - ALYNETECH LLC
Mitech Partners, a national telecom broker, will hold its quarterly Sales Partner event MiVision in Nashville, Tennessee at The Entrepreneur Center Friday, May 3, 2019 starting at 11:30 – 1:30pm.
Mitech Partners enables IT firms, consultants and sales professionals to earn residual income on essential... - April 19, 2019 - Mitech Partners, LLC
Korenix is glad to launch its new cellular gateway JetWave 2411/2111 series. The series are slim size cellular router/ IP gateway which are designed with only 35mm wide. The design allows it to easily fit into small cabinets or machines when space is limited. It is also equipped with embedded 4G LTE... - April 19, 2019 - Korenix Technology Co. Ltd.
The 5th Africa Mini Grids Summit 2019 will convene on May 8-10 in Nairobi, Kenya. This fifth edition of the Africa-wide conference will once again gather electricity regulators, utilities operators, mini grids developers, financiers, engineering and consulting experts, technology providers, and development... - April 18, 2019 - Magenta Global Pte Ltd
Enterprise mobile device management company continues to boost its advancement and executive lineup with a focus on business engagement, client servicing and industry relationships. - April 17, 2019 - MTech MDM
Ahead of Spain’s elections in April and May, the country's government is reportedly creating a special unit to identify cyber threats and fake news. The government is concerned about potential campaigns of disinformation and cyber attacks. - April 17, 2019 - NordVPN
Contact center software has so many features and benefits that it fits right into the communication slot for Financial services segment. - April 17, 2019 - Hodusoft Pvt. Ltd.
Cherry Servers has officially launched a cloud platform based on bare metal machines that is cost-effective, un-opinionated and simple to use. With specialized infrastructure and hardware level control, even the most demanding workloads can be handled at ease. - April 17, 2019 - Cherry Servers
On Thursday, 4th April at the Business Excellence Forum, London-based agency, Future Platforms won the award for Best Company Culture.
Adam Croxen, Managing Director at Future Platforms, and his team were thrilled to collect the award during a black-tie event at The International Centre in Telford,... - April 15, 2019 - Future Platforms
The National Rifle Association proudly announces Patriot Mobile as its endorsed cellular service provider. The companies will join forces to strengthen support for the 2nd Amendment; Patriot Mobile will provide NRA Members with exclusive offers on their cell phone plans and products to further the cause of America’s foremost defender of Second Amendment rights. - April 12, 2019 - Patriot Mobile
72 Copper to Fiber Converters with IEEE 802.3bt compliant Hi-PoE 100W PSE power injection. - April 12, 2019 - Perle Systems
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Honors Albert Woodard - April 11, 2019 - KaZee Inc.
MTech MDM, a company dedicated to supporting the mobile technology that modern workforces rely on every day, announced today the appointment of Leonel Silva as Vice President, Finance. The seasoned executive’s financial expertise will support MTech in its ongoing growth and service provision in the enterprise mobile device management sector. - April 11, 2019 - MTech MDM
WoMaster upgraded its line of 10-port L2 managed Ethernet and PoE switches (DS310 and DP310) with support of Modbus TCP protocol to provide users with much wider choice of devices and systems that can be utilized to meet specific applications.
Modbus provides a common language for devices and equipment... - April 11, 2019 - WoMaster
Execulink Telecom has funded the installation of four new device-charging stations for the Woodstock Public Library. - April 10, 2019 - Execulink Telecom
An overwhelming number of consumers say virtual reality will hit critical mass when VR headsets are sold for $199, according to a new survey. - April 09, 2019 - Picture Virtual Reality
Squire Technologies expands its core network offering for MNOs, MVNOs and MVNEs by adding Summa Networks’ HSS and HLR to their stable of signaling products. - April 08, 2019 - Summa Networks
Stringent military and environmental requirements now served with more linear power and less power draw solution. - April 06, 2019 - Wavestream
ServerAdminz, flagship brand of HashRoot Ltd. specialized in outsourced technical support exhibited in Data Center World Global 2019 held in Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, AZ from March 19-22, 2019. - April 05, 2019 - ServerAdminz
Today, Narrative Company announced the public Beta launch of its Narrative content platform. Narrative seeks to solve some of the thorniest issues facing online content today-censorship, account takedowns, fake news, trolls/bots, and data ownership.
According to CEO Ted O’Neill, the solution is... - April 05, 2019 - Narrative Company
Products are now available to purchase through FEDMALL, a state-of-the-art Search and Ordering Platform for DoD, Government Agencies and other authorized buyers. - April 04, 2019 - Waveband Communications LLC
SoliCall’s Noise Firewall combines with Genesys Customer Experience Platform to improve customer experience and prevent leakage of sensitive data. - April 03, 2019 - SoliCall


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February 16th news earlier this month emerging social applications Snapchat formally submitted IPO application, the company will be listed. Now, sources said, Snap IPO valuation at $19 billion 500 million to $22 billion 200 million, IPO price guidance range of $14-16 per share, which is expected to have a certain gap between the valuation of 40 billion.
Snap business from the burn after reading photo sharing application Snapchat started, and later to the advertising business, and provide information to the user. It is worth mentioning that the company founder Evan · Spiegel was born in 1990, is a standard 90.
Snap that the outside world will be the next Facebook.


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Freiberger To Acquire Pizza Maker Richelieu For $435 Million
German food manufacturer Südzucker has announced that its US subsidiary Freiberger is set to acquire Richelieu Foods - one of the largest private label pizza producers in the United States.
The $435 million deal will see Freiberger take over the Massachusetts-based company, which produces frozen and deli pizzas, as well as sauces and dressings, for food retailers across the US.
Richelieu Foods generated sales of $325 million in 2016.
Ernesto Bisagno, senior credit officer at Moody's ratings agency, discussed the credit implications of this deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year.
“We view the acquisition as a good strategic fit for Südzucker given its existing exposure to the frozen pizzas market in Europe, where the company is the sector leader through Freiberger, with approximately 18% market share."
"In addition, the acquisition will help Südzucker to reduce the exposure to the volatility in sugar prices," he added.
Last month, Südzucker posted sales of €3,493 million in the first half of its financial year, representing an increase of 9%, with growth largely driven by its sugar business.
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Sarah Harford. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.


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Amazon is to add an extra 100 jobs at its Digital Media Development Centre in London this year.
The company announced on Wednesday that the additional staff at the London centre will include software development engineers, user-interface experts, and graphics designers.
Amazon initially said it would recruit 100 staff for the centre near The Barbican when itlast year. It now plans to double that figure with 100 more positions added during the "early part of this year".
The eight-floor Digital Media Development Centre on the outskirts of London's Tech City is the global hub for Amazon's services and APIs for digital media, and develops offerings for TVs, PCs, smartphones and games consoles, as well as Amazon's global websites. It is also home to the design and development teams for Amazon's LoveFilm and Pushbutton businesses.
"We have always known that there is a wealth of tech talent here in London and we continue to look for the most creative minds in the UK to work on the next generation of TV and film services for Amazon customers all over the world," said Paula Byrne, Pushbutton's founder and managing director of the centre, in a statement.
The move comes shortly after the UKinto Tech City for projects including the development of a new start-up centre.


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Nokia Buys Dopplr
Today Nokia announced that it has acquired Dopplr. Dopplr, which is based in London and Helsinki, was a privately held company that gives international travelers who like to share their experiences as they travel the opportunity to make recommendations to colleagues and friends that are part of their social networks. Dopplr's seven employees will be folded into Nokia's Services unit. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Nokia to Pare Down Its Technologies Unit
Nokia today said it intends to cut about 70 jobs from its Technologies unit. "Nokia Technologies has revised its long-term strategy and will consequently reshape [the] organization.
Nokia to Buy Alcatel-Lucent, Mulling Options for HERE Maps
Nokia today said it has agreed to acquire Alcatel-Lucent for $16.6 billion. The combined companies would be a giant in the telecom equipment space with more than 100,000 employees.
Nokia and Samsung Settle Patent Licensing Deal
Nokia today said it has reached an agreement with Samsung over the licensing of its wireless patents. The companies have been disputing the value of Nokia's patents since Nokia sold its handset division to Microsoft.
Uber Attempting to Hail HERE Maps with $3B Bid
Uber has submitted a bid to purchase HERE Maps from Nokia for $3 billion, reports the New York Times. The bid is one of several and may not result in a sale, cautioned the Times' unnamed sources.
Shoulda been Moto!


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That’s alarming. So I hatched a plan to help 1 million Americans lose at least 10 pounds of unwanted fat by 2007. This will give us a total national fat loss of 10 million pounds!
South Lyon, MI (PRWEB) July 21, 2006
Michigan resident and 10 year fitness expert Rob Poulos recently began an online petition and released a free consumer fitness guide called “Power Fitness Principles” to help Americans lose 10 million pounds by 2007. Poulos’s goal is to help 1 million Americans lose at least 10 pounds of unwanted fat each by the end of the year.
“About 31% of Americans are obese, and according to a recent article in USA Today, about 40%, or 68 million people, will be obese by 2010,” said Poulos. “That’s alarming. So I hatched a plan to help 1 million Americans lose at least 10 pounds of unwanted fat by 2007. This will give us a total national fat loss of 10 million pounds!”
According to Poulos, most people try to get into shape and lose weight using “quick fix” solutions. “Our culture is fixated on getting instant results,” he said. “And when it comes to losing weight, most people gravitate toward the latest fad diet or magic pill to solve their problems. This just creates confusion and frustration, as the short-term gains you may be lucky to achieve are rarely sustainable, and they often come with undesirable side-effects and require major lifestyle changes.”
Over the past 10 years, Poulos says, he’s experimented with every fitness and weight loss method he could get his hands on. “It took me years of trial and error to sift through all the junk that the fitness industry peddles to the American public and find out that most of it just doesn’t work. After I finally discovered what I believe to be the core fitness fundamentals, I decided that I wanted to help as many people as possible so that’s why I wrote my free consumer guide exposing everything I learned.”
Poulos’s 37-page “Power Fitness Principles” consumer guide is available only on his website at http://www.lose10millionpounds.com as a free download when you sign his petition. He encourages anyone that wants to lose at least 10 pounds of unwanted fat by 2007 to read his guide, and also to send a copy of it to friends and family members.
“The most exciting thing I learned about fitness over the past decade,” said Poulos, “Is that when you properly apply the techniques I teach in my guide, you’ll never have to go on another diet again, nor run blindly on a treadmill for hours at a time. Instead, you incorporate simple yet fundamental changes to your lifestyle that will have an everlasting effect on your fitness and overall health for years to come.”
Poulos encourages anyone interested in health and fitness to sign his online petition. “I understand that helping a million people lose 10 pounds of unwanted fat in less than 6 months may seem impossible to many. But I believe that every person that signs my petition and reads my fitness guide will tell their friends and family, which will create an exponential wave of awareness in our country, ultimately allowing us to achieve our goal together.”
About Zero to Hero Fitness, LLC.:
Zero to Hero Fitness, LLC, was formed by Rob Poulos to educate people on his core fitness fundamentals that will allow them to maximize their physical genetic potential.
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While Nvidia’s A800 server GPU was originally designed for customers in China by sidestepping U.S. export restrictions last year, a recently launched workstation version of the chip was always meant for a global customer base, according to a company representative.
The product in question is the A800 40GB Active, which Nvidia quietly launched last week as a workstation GPU for AI, data science and high-performance computing. The chip is available in North America and other regions not impacted by a new wave of U.S. export restrictions announced last month blocking sales of the A800 and other high-end AI chips to China and other countries.
In an interview with CRN, Allen Bourgoyne, a director of product marketing at Nvidia, said the company introduced the A800 40GB Active because it needed a replacement for 2018’s Quadro GV100, which it stopped producing after being one of the last GPUs to use Nvidia’s six-year-old Volta architecture.
“Whatever happened to China, we would have had to build a follow-on product. We would’ve needed to do that, because that product [the GV100] went end-of-life. We needed a replacement,” he said.ADVERTISEMENT
When the time came to design the GV100’s successor, the product team looked at the GPUs “available to us” that could meet the product requirements defined by the team. These requirements included constraints around physical, electrical, cooling and pricing attributes, and the product also had to deliver fast double-precision performance, which is crucial for HPC applications, according to Bourgoyne.
This is typical of how Nvidia designs its chip-based products.
“It’s basically product engineering,” Bourgoyne said.
From the options available, the product team decided to use “the same GPU [that] was used in the original A800 server product,” mainly due to the A800’s high throughput for double-precision computing, which is also known as 64-bit floating point or FP64, according to the Nvidia employee.
Nvidia introduced the A800 server GPU to customers in China last year as an alternative to its powerful A100 GPU because the latter part had been banned in the country by U.S. export restrictions.
The company designed the A800 to sidestep these restrictions by reducing the GPU’s chip-to-chip bandwidth, but Nvidia had to halt sales of the A800 and other high-end GPUs to China last month due to new U.S. rules targeting high performance density capabilities.
To the A800 40GB Active’s product team, however, it didn’t matter that the A800 started out as a server GPU designed initially for the Chinese market or that it would be banned from the country a year later. What was important was that it was available and it fit the team’s needs.
“It would exist regardless of what happened to China,” Bourgoyne said.
This is similar to how Nvidia tapped the Volta-based V100 server GPU for the GV100 workstation chip.
“For the foreseeable future, we’ll probably always need to leverage data center parts for high double-precision components for things we need in desktop. That’s just where the technology is more important,” Bourgoyne said.
How Nvidia Adapted The A800 For A Workstation
To adapt the A800 for a workstation, which is a heavy-duty desktop PC, the product team needed to make some changes from the server design.
One of the most important changes is the addition of a fan for actively cooling the GPU since a workstation can’t provide enough cooling for a server chip that is only equipped with a passive cooling solution, according to Bourgoyne.
Because the fan requires power, that meant the product team had to adjust the GPU to keep it within the team’s targeted power budget for the product. These adjustments included trimming down the GPU’s memory a “little bit” and running the GPU “a little slower,” Bourgoyne said.
The result is that the A800 40GB Active offers “similar performance” to the A800 server GPU, but it can offer that performance in a desktop form factor rather than a server, the product marketer added.
How A800 40GB Active Compares To Quadro GV100
Compared to 2018’s Quadro GV100, the A800 40GB Active is considered a big upgrade, offering 40GB of HBM2 memory versus GV100’s 32GB, a 5,120-bit memory interface versus GV100’s 4,096-bit interface, 1.5 TB/s of memory bandwidth versus GV100’s 870 GB/s, 6,912 CUDA cores versus GV100’s 5,120 CUDA cores and 400 GB/s of NVLink chip-to-chip bandwidth versus GV100’s 200 GB/s.
And while the A800 40GB Active’s 432 Tensor cores is less than the GV100’s 640 Tensor cores, the former is capable of hitting more than five times the peak Tensor performance at 623.8 teraflops. The GPU also provides a single-precision performance of 19.5 teraflops and a double-precision performance of 9.7 teraflops, which are 31 percent increases over the GV100’s capabilities.
Compared to the GV100, the A800 40GB Active runs 4.2 times faster for AI inference with the BERT Large model, 90 percent faster for AI training with the BERT Large model, 90 percent faster for the GTC benchmark and 70 percent faster for the LAMMPS benchmark, according to internal tests run by Nvidia.
What makes the A800 40GB Active a big upgrade is that the GPU is based on Nvidia’s Ampere architecture, which brings several substantial improvements over Volta, including a new efficiency technique for speeding up AI computations called structural sparsity and the ability to split the GPU into as many as seven GPU instances for running multiple workloads in parallel.
Both GPUs have a power budget of 240 watts.
A800 40GB Active Availability
Nvidia started selling the A800 40GB Active globally through channel partners last week, though the recent U.S. export restrictions mean the chip won’t be available in some countries, like China.
According to Nvidia partner PNY Technologies, the full list of excluded countries is as follows:
Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, Cambodia, Central African Republic, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Egypt, Eritrea, Georgia, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Macau, Moldova, Mongolia, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, South Sudan, Republic of Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe.LEARN MORE: CPUs-GPUs | AI
Dylan Martin is a senior editor at CRN covering the semiconductor, PC, mobile device, and IoT beats. He has distinguished his coverage of the semiconductor industry thanks to insightful interviews with CEOs and top executives; scoops and exclusives about product, strategy and personnel changes; and analyses that dig into the why behind the news. He can be reached at [email protected].
VMware, Intel Seek To Help Businesses Build And Run AI Models On Existing ServersNvidia Revs North American Channel To Sell Workstation Version Of Banned-In-China A800 GPUAMD Reveals Ryzen 7040 CPUs With Two Core Types, Says Approach Bests Intel’sAMD Continues PC CPU Sales Rebound As Server Chip Sales Perk UpIntel CEO Gelsinger: ‘We Are Hitting Or Beating All Our Product Roadmap Milestones’ TO TOPADVERTISEMENT
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Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) lowered its notebook computer shipment target yesterday for the second quarter, saying the ongoing subprime crisis and rising inflation had exacerbated already slowing demand in Europe and China.
The company’s gross margin may fall to around 15 percent in the second quarter because of stiffer price competition in the slow season, chief financial executive David Chang (張偉明) told reporters.
That would represent a 6.5 percentage point decline from the 21.5 percent Asustek posted in the first quarter.
“The company’s gross margin will be under higher pressure in the second quarter. To reach the shipment target, we have to adjust prices,” Chang said.
Asustek said it was also conservative about notebook shipments.
“In January, we thought it would be comfortable for us to increase laptop shipments 10 percent in the second quarter [over the first quarter],” Chang said.
“But, now, we think the growth will be between zero percent and 10 percent,” Chang said.
The subprime crisis, weakening global economy and inflation are taking their toll on consumer demand for electronics, Chang said.
More than 50 percent of the company’s NT$77.27 billion in first-quarter revenues came from the European market and 40 percent from Asia, the company’s financial statement said.
Asustek, however, has no plans to cut its full-year laptop shipment goal, he said.
Asustek, which produces the low-cost Eee PC series, aims to boost Asus-brand laptop shipments by 63 percent annually to 7 million units this year.
In a worst case scenario, it would still hope to ship 6.6 million units, Chang said.
The company expects to realize its target of shipping 1.3 million Eee PCs in the second quarter once constraints on battery supplies ease substantially next month, he said.
A battery shortage has restricted the expansion of the Eee PC models in Europe, the company said. The popular low-cost PCs are only available in certain European countries, including UK and France.
Asustek will retain the target of selling 5 million Eee PCs this year, Chang said. The company sold 700,000 units in the first quarter, mostly to Western Europe and emerging markets.
Encouraged by the success of the Eee PC series, Asustek is creating a sub-brand, “Eee,” with a broader product line that will include low-cost desktop computers with convenient user interface.
This year, sales of the new “Eee” brand may account for 20 percent of Asustek’s total revenues, with 10 percent coming from the Eee PC series, Chang said.
Asustek plans to showcase two next-generation Eee PC laptops outfitted with Intel Corp’s latest Atom chipset and a bigger screen at the annual computer trade show Computex in Taipei next week.
Following suit, Asustek’s local competitors also plan to unveil low-cost laptops at Computex.
Acer Inc, BenQ Corp (明基) and First International Computer Inc (大眾電腦), as well as motherboard maker Micro-Star International Co (微星科技) and home appliances maker Sampo Corp (聲寶) plan to debut their low-cost laptops running Microsoft’s operating system, Microsoft said yesterday.
Sales of low-cost PCs are expected to reach around 15 million units this year around the globe, International Data Corp projected.
Additional reporting by Jerry Lin


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Tablet market in India declined by over 32 percent to 0.78 million units in January-March this year as it continued to struggle to attract buyers, research firm IDC said Wednesday.
Going ahead this year, the firm said it expects the market to face similar headwinds on account of rising popularity of phablets and the issue of Bureau of Indian Standard (BIS) certification.
"The India tablet market shipments for Q1 2014 stood at 0.78 million units, representing a year-on-year drop of 32.8 percent over Q1 2013. The drop was primarily due to lack of new buyers in the market," IDC said.
(Also see: Low-cost tablets drive sales in India to 4.14 million in 2013: IDC)
BIS compliance is certainly hurting the white-box market.
International device vendors like Apple and Samsung grew in comparison against Q4 2013, posting significant double-digit growth rates in Q1, it added.
"However at an overall level, the branded vendors were unable to capitalise on the space left vacant by the erosion from white-box and smaller vendors," IDC India Senior Market Analyst of Tablets, Enterprise Client Devices and PC Monitors Karan Thakkar said.
IDC anticipates the overall tablet market to hover around the same mark as reported in Q1 2014. There are few inhibitors to the growth.
Emergence of phablets (screen size 5.5-6.99-inch), continues to haunt the consumer decision making process, it said.
"Another looming issue is the revised labelling guidelines for BIS certification of IT products. Most of the tablet vendors import shipments.
"Any alteration to the hardware design of the product has to be done at the source location, which in turn will pose a threat to the supply chain and there will be a direct impact on the launch of a product in a different market and its availability in India," IDC added.
In Q1 2014, Samsung led the tablet market in India with 22.5 percent share followed by Apple (14.4 percent), Micromax (8.8 percent) and Datawind (6.8 percent).
(Also see: Apple, Samsung Remain Top Vendors in Slowing Tablet Market: IDC)


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Mozambique recently hosted the first business forum of the South African Development Comunity (SADC). One of the highlights was from Mr Luis Magaco, a reputable economist in the country. He stated that some businesses might need to implement temporary layoffs for business survival https://bit.ly/3A2jNVN.
Ethiopia has signed a $94 million groundwater irrigation project with Korea which should be implemented in the Oromia region. The project is expected to benefit nearly 20,000 households and develop 5,000 hectares of land https://bit.ly/2TauYer.
Kenya has opened the Lamu Port to Ethiopia following a visit from Ethiopian journalists and investors. The Head of the Kenya Ports Authority after a meet with the Ethiopian Ambassador to Kenya formed an agreement to facilitate a conducive environment for trade https://bit.ly/3h4Zy10.


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LEWISTON — Maine businesses, already challenged by a worker shortage, will face an additional test Monday of whether to require masks.
Last week, the state removed the mandate that the public mask up indoors. Starting Monday, it will be up to businesses and organizations to decide whether to ask customers to mask up, whether to ask for proof of vaccination, or do neither. No matter what they do, business owners and supporters say they will face flak.
Beginning Monday, while the Maine Center for Disease Control recommends those not vaccinated against COVID mask up, the state is no longer mandating it.
Robert Long, spokesman for the Maine CDC, noted that Maine continues to lead the nation in the number of people age 18 and older who have been vaccinated, with a slight majority — 56% — of the total population being fully vaccinated.
“It’s also important to note that the recommendation that unvaccinated people wear masks indoors has not changed,” Long said Friday in an email. “Every Maine business or organization other than schools, child care programs, and public transportation providers can make its own determination on whether to require masks, proof of vaccination, or take other measures to limit potential spread of the virus.”
Businesses and other organizations may adopt policies for their employees and clients to require wearing a mask, require vaccination or require proof of vaccination to avoid wearing a mask, according to the Maine CDC.
Shanna Cox, president of the Lewiston Auburn Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, said that leaves business owners in a difficult spot. “How do we verify who’s vaccinated or not?” Cox asked. “No one’s prepared. We don’t have the tools.”
Checking for vaccination cards would put employees in confrontational positions with some customers, she said. And a customer who does show a vaccination card, “how do we know if it’s a legitimate document?”
For that reason, it’s expected that many businesses and organizations will allow unmasked customers and not ask for proof of vaccination, including the Maine Mall in Portland and several large retailers.
Hannaford supermarkets will ask those not vaccinated to wear a mask.
“Individuals who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will no longer be required to wear masks in our stores, except in those states and towns where a local law or ordinance requires mask usage,” according to a statement released by Hannaford spokesman Eric Blom. “Individuals who have not received COVID-19 vaccination are asked to wear masks while shopping.”
Hannaford will not require proof of vaccination, Blom said.
Some business owners contacted, however, said they will continue to require masks, saying it’s still too early and too few people are fully vaccinated.
Lewiston’s Baxter Brewing will require customers and workers to wear masks in the restaurant and brewery.
“While we understand the plan for reopening and easing of restrictions, we plan to continue to require masks while not seated, both in our indoor and outdoor space,” Baxter Pub Manager Caitlyn Page said in an email.
“We will make no immediate changes to any protocols that were in place in April,” she said.
Social distancing rules of 6 feet will remain in place, indoor capacity will not be expanded, and workers will remain masked for their and the public’s protection, she said.
Baxter’s protocols are stricter than the Maine CDC, Page acknowledged, but the company feels it’s what’s best in terms of safety for workers and customers.
The thrift store for Androscoggin Home Healthcare + Hospice will also stick to masking and social distancing, President Ken Albert said.
Guidance from the U.S. CDC and the Maine CDC says masks should be worn by people not fully vaccinated, Albert said Friday in an email. And, he said, COVID -19 rates in Androscoggin County continue to be among the highest in Maine and in the United States. Meanwhile vaccination rates in the county are lower than the state average.
What many businesses will do, Cox said, is post signs saying the Maine CDC recommends people who are unvaccinated wear a mask and hope the honor system works.
“We hope that people take the CDC recommendation to heart,” she said. Signs will be at event venues and businesses, she said. “We want to believe that 99% of people walking in our doors will do the right thing.”
Locally, a number of hospitality businesses will follow Baxter’s lead and ask all customers to wear masks to protect workers and customers, Cox said. But the experience will be different at different businesses and organizations. It will likely be confusing, she said.
The time may be right for the state as a whole to unmask, but Androscoggin County is lagging behind the state average in the rates of people vaccinated, Cox said. “And what’s getting lost (in the discussion) is that a large portion of the population, ages 11 and younger, aren’t able to get vaccinated.”
She worries the lack of state masking mandate could polarize people in several ways and prompt harassment. It could further pit anti-maskers against those who continue to wear masks out of safety concerns. Or, some might assume a shopper wearing a mask has not been vaccinated when that person has been, but is worried about others not being vaccinated.
The chamber president said she hopes the easing of COVID-19 restrictions will not lead to higher numbers of cases.
“We recognize what’s at stake: future shutdowns,” Cox said. “We all know what can happen. We’ve been through it.”


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Well, Katie Rogers' 80 days are up. We spoke with Rogers, who lived for almost three months without a car in L.A., a town where people often say you need a car to survive, at the Santa Monica Alt Car Expo in December. With the end of the 80 day-affair, Rogers says her lifestyle has quickly changed back to being car-dependent, but she's still going to try to use the public transportation/bike method to get to work once a week.
- Sebastian Blanco
- Dec 13, 2006
The Alt Car Expo featured not only alternative fueled cars, but also alternatives to cars. Bikes, skateboards and public transportation were all present at the event. One of these alternative booths was staffed by people from in-production documentary Carless in L.A.
- Great used cars for less than $10,000
- Owners say these cars aren't very good deals
- New Car Buying Guides
- Cheapest new automobiles in America
- Fastest-depreciating cars in the United States
- Find and compare 2017 Models


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EE have rolled out their premium 4G service to 9 more towns.
If you are in Amersham, Bolton, Chelmsford, Hemel Hempstead, Southend-on-Sea, Stockport, Sunderland, Sutton Coldfield or Wolverhampton, you should now be able to access to EE’s 4G network.
Apparently this means 45% of the UK population now have access to EE’s 4G services (how many can afford them is perhaps a different number). EE’s aim is to cover 98% of the population by the end of 2014 – yes that’s the end of next year!
In the meantime, the full list of towns and cities now enabled is as follows: Amersham, Belfast, Birmingham, Bolton, Bristol, Cardiff, Chelmsford, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Hemel Hempstead, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Maidenhead, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Southampton, Southend-on-Sea, Stockport, Sunderland, Sutton Coldfield and Wolverhampton.
Don’t forget some periphery areas also get included, so if you’re on the outskirts, its worth checking the EE coverage checker to see what you can get.
Link – EE Coverage Checker
EE SWITCHES ON 4G IN NINE MORE TOWNS ACROSS THE UK
- 4G arrives in Amersham, Bolton, Chelmsford, Hemel Hempstead, Southend-on-Sea, Stockport, Sunderland, Sutton Coldfield and Wolverhampton, delivering superfast mobile to more consumers and businesses
- Launches bring total 4G connected towns and cities to 27, just 90 days since EE launch
- EE 4G rollout ahead of schedule and now available to approximately 45% of the UK population
January 31, 2013 – EE, the UK’s most advanced digital communications company, today announced that 4G is available in nine new areas across the UK, bringing the total number of towns and cities covered by superfast mobile technology to 27, just 90 days after the launch of the service.
Today, 4G is being switched on in Amersham, Bolton, Chelmsford, Hemel Hempstead, Southend-on-Sea, Stockport, Sunderland, Sutton Coldfield and Wolverhampton. 4G from EE now covers the homes and businesses of approximately 45% of the UK population.
Superfast 4G mobile is approximately five times faster than 3G. 4GEE mobile customers can instantly access the web on the go, download large email attachments quicker than ever, watch live TV on mobiles without buffering, make high quality video calls on the move and play live multiplayer games on the go. EE customers have access to a wide range of mobile handsets, tablets and mobile Wi-Fi devices, including iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy SIII LTE, iPad mini, Huawei Mobile Wi-Fi, and the newly launched Blackberry Z10, available from EE stores today.
Olaf Swantee, Chief Executive Officer, EE, said:
“As the first operator to bring 4G to the UK it is important that we make it accessible to as much of the population as possible, as quickly as possible. To be ahead of schedule and covering approximately 45% of the population within just 90 days of the launch is a great achievement for our network team. We continue to bring superfast mobile to more and more people, whether they’re using their devices outdoors or in their homes and offices, and to increase the speed and consistency of our 4G and 3G network across the UK.”
As well as bringing 4G to new areas, EE continues to increase the network density* of its 4G offering, ensuring the continued advancement of the service in the previously launched towns and cities. As a result, users will find they have increasingly consistent, superfast access to 4G wherever they travel, and during their commutes to work. This continued investment is enabling businesses and consumers to have the full, superfast 4G experience of web, social media, email and multi-media, wherever they are.
For more information, please visit www.ee.co.uk.


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UneeQ’s Digital Humans Bring 5G to Life with Singtel’s UNBOXED Pop-Up Stores
Asia’s leading telecommunications group employs Stella, UneeQ’s conversational AI-powered digital human employee, to revolutionize the future of the contactless retail experience
UneeQ, a United States and New Zealand-based digital human company, announces their latest success with major multinational telecommunications conglomerate, Singtel, to launch digital human employee, Stella. Designed to provide a more personalized, contact-free retail experience, Stella serves as Singtel’s state-of-the-art 5G virtual retail assistant across its new unmanned UNBOXED pop-up stores.
Meet Stella, Singtel’s newest digital human employee from UneeQ. Designed to provide a more personalized, contact-free retail experience, Stella serves as Singtel’s state-of-the-art 5G virtual retail assistant across its new unmanned UNBOXED pop-up stores.
Through advanced artificial intelligence, natural language processing, a friendly tone of voice, human-like facial expressions, and body language, Stella engages and assists customers through a wide array of retail and account management transactions. Whether customers are navigating which mobile phone plan is right for them or purchasing a new device, Stella is available via the UNBOXED store’s interactive self-serve kiosks, 24 hours a day.
The integration of digital shopping kiosks paired with digital human employees like Stella are driving contactless shopping innovation without giving up the meaningful conversations and personalized experiences that consumers encounter in a traditional retail setting.
Recommended AI News: ID Tech Is Revolutionizing STEM Learning With Fun, Personalized Online Math Lessons
“UneeQ is excited to be part of a retail transformation strategy where we’ve combined the potential of 5G and artificial intelligence to create a game changer in customer self-service,” said Danny Tomsett, CEO and Founder of UneeQ. “The world is experiencing rapid change and the need for engaging self-service experiences has become a critical need. Singtel has demonstrated world-leading vision and execution combining brand experience and convenient customer service. We believe this to be the future of retail.”
Stella is equipped to handle end-to-end customer interactions through friendly conversation, an extensive product knowledge base and a warm smile. Powered by Singtel’s state-of-the-art 5G, UneeQ and Singtel are truly offering customers an engaging shopping experience like no other.
“With the pandemic placing so much pressure on companies to maintain operations while employees are working remotely, we are seeing a significant increase in digital employee interest within customer service and sales assistance, especially in the retail industry,” said Tomsett. “By anchoring an exclusive digital human personality throughout the customer journey, progressive companies are able to build better relationships with customers at every touchpoint, while also clearly differentiating their service.”


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People don’t normally visit our Boston studio with a rack of superhero outfits. But this is exactly what happened on a recent Thursday afternoon: Sergei Nossoff, CEO of Teslasuit, and Andrei Pyko, who runs the company’s research team, dropped by to demo their sleek black haptic feedback garments. After permitting a few lucky people to suit up, get calibrated, and venture into VR land, they conducted a spirited conversation with Elaina Shekhter, EPAM’s Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer.
The trio talked about how the suit was originally conceived of as a video game accessory (Nossoff said that his CTO originally sought to “create a suit that would provide extra sensations during gaming”) but it’s currently used for (1) XR training and motion capture; and (2) medical and healthcare applications.
The task of the technology, said Pyko, is to get people deeply involved and forget that they’re zipped into a suit or a VR environment. “There are a lot of emotions just wearing the suit,” he said and added that donning the suit can prompt people to ask, “Am I a superhero?”
Zooming out, Shekhter noted that EPAM’s investment in Teslasuit, like our other recent investments, focuses on "identifying unique, technologically driven propositions that present an opportunity for EPAM to accelerate the company either through our own product development expertise or to act as a channel or as an integrator for a large number of our portfolio customers across multiple verticals.”
The portfolio of this conversation included such topics as Teslasuit’s current business model (B2G and B2B enterprise training services), their partnership with the Hospital for Special Surgery (Nossoff said the aim of the HSS partnership is to “create a product to allow patients to be treated remotely as well as be diagnosed remotely”), and how PII data and privacy factors in here (“So far, we do not have medical certification but we are working towards it,” said Pyko).
Where might Teslasuit be walking in the near future?
“In the longer term, we can really use this technology for the consumer market,” said Nossoff. He’s not necessarily thinking about video games, but fitness and wellbeing and yoga.
Shekhter joked about Teslasuit working with Louis Vuitton on yoga clothing, and Nossoff talked about pajamas for older people to take biometric parameters to prevent heart attacks during sleep and industrial PPE use.
All agreed that deep tech smart wearables have a future. And it might be a luxurious future at that.
“I wasn’t actually kidding about Louis Vuitton yoga wear,” said Shekhter. “We work with a lot of retailers who’d absolutely love to brand your black superhero suits.”Embedded content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipcvPTSEguo&feature=youtu.be
Teslasuit. Watch a video of Teslasuit in action.
EPAM Invests in Go Philly Fund. Curious to learn more about EPAM’s recent investment activities? Read this.
VR Training Is Taking Flight. This is a thoughtful post about the role of virtual reality and training.
Just What the Doctor Ordered. When it comes to health and wellness, VR is moving from the edge to the center. A tidy introduction to VR's healthy side.
The Privacy Web. Here’s a piece that breaks down some of the complexities of personal identifiable information, or PII (if you want to get informal).
Who Wants to Partner with Nikola Tesla? Consider our brief introduction to the person for whom the Teslasuit is named, with some thematically appropriate thoughts about collaboration and innovation.
Telepresence. Marvin Minsky’s famed idea of “presence” seem to have presaged Teslasuit: “You don a comfortable jacket lined with sensors and muscle-like motors. Each motion of your arm, hand, and fingers is reproduced at another place by mobile, mechanical hands.” Read Minsky’s 1980 Omni magazine article and judge for yourself.
Host: Kenji Ross
Engineer: Kyp Pilalas
Producer: Ken Gordon


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Santa Monica, CA (PRWEB) October 28, 2016 -- Pathmatics today announced a new North American alliance with Nielsen to bring Pathmatics’ digital advertising tracking data to Nielsen’s U.S. and Canadian customers.
The collaboration will enhance Nielsen’s existing digital ad tracking service with uniquely specific insights that modern marketers demand. Beyond ad spend, market placement, and a catalog of ad creatives, Pathmatics will provide Nielsen customers with views of new media types, purchase preferences, and the targeting of different devices.
What sets Pathmatics’ data apart is the unique transparency provided by the company’s PathSource technology which allows marketers to decode programmatic and direct ad campaigns by understanding the critical path points each impression took towards placement. Pathmatics’ advertising intelligence solution, AdRoutes, is used in the U.S. by agencies, brands, publishers and adtech companies including two of the top three agency holding companies and three of the top 10 advertisers.
“Pathmatics is committed to providing marketers with the deep intelligence they need to compete,” said Gabe Gottlieb, CEO of Pathmatics. “We’re really excited to grow our relationship with Nielsen into the U.S. and Canada, adding our best-in-class digital ad data to Nielsen’s broad media coverage.”
Advertising intelligence has evolved greatly over the last several years with innovations that allow for a clear picture of entire competitive landscapes. Insights can be used to respond to aggressive spending, new product launches or customer conquest efforts.
"Transparent digital ad intelligence is critical for modern marketers to better understand how, why, and where to market their products or services," said Heather Jordan, Senior Vice President of Product Leadership, Nielsen. "The Pathmatics collaboration will ensure our customers have the most accurate spend and impression data they need to make critical decisions."
Nielsen undertook an extensive process to evaluate the market’s top digital advertising intelligence providers. After establishing a relationship in 2015 to serve the Australian and European markets, Nielsen expanded Pathmatics’ role to now serve their top media market, North America.
For more information, visit: info.pathmatics.com/Nielsen
# # #
Pathmatics is a competitive tracking platform that changes the way agencies, publishers and brands see, calibrate and respond to digital advertising campaigns. Users can easily monitor a competitor’s online spending, identify pitfalls in their own campaigns and quickly respond to market trends via a simple, self-serve dashboard. Pathmatics provides modern marketers honest transparency and unprecedented access to creatives being served, where and how they are delivered, and the impressions they’re reaching. Analyzing 36k advertisers, 32k publishers, 600 ad services and 13.5M creative executions, Pathmatics is a must-have intelligence platform for advertisers looking to optimize efforts in real-time.
Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global performance management company that provides a comprehensive understanding of what consumers watch and buy. Nielsen's Watch segment provides media and advertising clients with Total Audience measurement services for all devices on which content — video, audio and text — is consumed. The Buy segment offers consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers the industry's only global view of retail performance measurement. By integrating information from its Watch and Buy segments and other data sources, Nielsen also provides its clients with analytics that help improve performance. Nielsen, an S&P 500 company, has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world’s population. For more information, visit http://www.nielsen.com.
Gabriel del Rio, GdR PR, http://www.gdr.pr, +1 (310) 500-8972, [email protected]
SOURCE GdR PR


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Scottish retailers share their experiences as customers get to grips with the return of strict Covid-19 rules
THE new year brought a new lockdown with it, and Scotland’s local retailers have yet again stepped up to support their communities.
While the situation today may feel different to last spring, when the country shut down for the first time, supporting vulnerable customers is still high on the agenda for many retailers.
Donna and Bruce Morgan have drafted in staff support from their local pub.• Donna Morgan, who runs Best-One @ Brownlies of Biggar with husband Bruce, said the shop is quieter now than it was during the first lockdown, but that there has been a recent surge in demand for deliveries as Covid-19 cases appear in the local area.
“It’s very different from the last time; a bit quieter, not as busy. Deliveries are starting to pick up again as there have been a few cases in Biggar recently and we’re starting to get more orders through again from older people who are maybe starting to get a bit scared again and are staying at home.
“Our local Biggar Community Action group was formed in March last year and volunteers do deliveries for us three days a week and we pick them up the other days. We did deliveries before the pandemic but the volume increased tremendously and we needed support,” she said.
Footfall decline isn’t the only change Donna has noticed, with the South Lanarkshire retailer also noticing a tightening of purse strings among some of her customers.
“Shoppers are much more frugal this time round and are treating themselves less than before.
“During the summer, everyone was being nice to themselves; our prosecco sales and gin sales went through the roof, but I think money is tighter now – people have been furloughed or made redundant and are being a bit more cautious about what they’re spending money on as a result,” she said.
“However, we’re finding people are still doing Zoom events with friends and family too, so we need to make sure we’re well stocked for those types of occasions,” she said.
Maintaining strong staffing numbers has also become critical for the team at Brownlies and Donna said they have drafted in support from the local pub and hotel to ensure they’re not caught short if a team member is forced to self-isolate.
“People, including myself, are more concerned about the new Covid-19 variant, especially when you read that a significant number of people in hospital at the moment are under the age of 50.
“That worries me because that’s probably half of my staff, including Bruce and I, and it puts us a bit more on edge.
“The local pub next door is open for takeaways so I’ve got two of their staff helping us out and I’ve taken on a youngster from one of the local hotels, so we’re trying to make sure we have extra staff in.
“We’ve had a couple of scares with staff isolating so we’re making sure we’re staff heavy and that other people are trained up so that if a number of staff couldn’t work we could at least run the shop in some sort of fashion,” she said.
• In Kirkcaldy, Asif Akhtar of Premier Smeaton Stores said he thinks that as lockdown rumbles on, delivery has become an essential service that his customers expect their local store to offer.
“Delivery is something we did not do before, but we launched it during the first lockdown and took orders through Facebook and phone calls initially.
“We now use a proper platform and that’s going really well. It’s a service that you have to offer as I think people just expect it now from a convenience store,” he said.
The Smeaton Stores team are also using the delivery service as a tool to help the local community in Kirkcaldy, as Asif explained.
“We have a psychiatric hospital along the road from us and the patients aren’t allowed out during lockdown due to their various needs and vulnerabilities, so we launched a dedicated delivery service for them and that’s been great. The nurses take the patients’ orders in the morning and phone us with what they need once a day,” he said.
Asif echoed Donna Morgan’s sentiments about experiencing lower footfall and lower basket spend during this lockdown, and said school closures have had a major impact.
He said: “This lockdown is very different to the last one; footfall wise and basket spend wise it’s completely different. During the first lockdown footfall was lower due to the restrictions but basket spend was through the roof. This time footfall is OK but basket spend is way down. It’s a lot quieter.
“We’ve got four schools around us – two primary and two secondary schools. At lunch times, within a 20-minute window we would easily reach 100 school kids and that’s not there anymore.
“In the morning as they walk to school and after school when they return home were also really good times and it’s now non-existent, so we’re not getting that rush anymore.”
School footfall may be down, but one section that is booming at Smeaton Stores is food to go, which Asif said has enjoyed growth as surrounding businesses have shut up shop during lockdown.
“Food to go has been a good success. We have a few bakeries around us but they’ve all closed down due to lockdown and because of that we’re now even busier with food to go.
“In the colder months we do hot dogs and that’s going well too. During the last lockdown we stopped hot food all together and concentrated on the local bakery but this time we have both still running and they’re doing really well,” he said.
Food to go may be up but, unlike during last year’s lockdown, Asif said his alcohol sales are in decline – the first dip for the category that his store has experienced for years.
“Alcohol sales during the first lockdown were sky high. I’m finding alcohol sales are down at the moment and it’s the first drop we’ve had in a few years.
“The first lockdown took place during spring and summer time and, not that it was a novelty situation, but people had money and they were getting support and they were spending time in the garden. This time it’s not the same at all,” he said.
• Imran Ali of Day-Today Bourtreehill Supermarket in Irvine told Scottish Grocer that the business has completed over 7,000 deliveries since launching its app six months ago.
He said: “Taking the business online has certainly helped to get the vital supplies out to people who need it. It wasn’t designed for the pandemic, it was designed to push our business further and push it online.
“The platforms were about 70% ready before the pandemic hit but we had to launch it last minute to keep up with demand. It’s going well. We’ve done over 7,000 deliveries and we cover a six-mile radius of the shop which is feasible for us.
“Customers can also outline on their receipt if they’re self isolating which gives the driver a heads up and keeps us all safe.
“I’ve had families in Australia and Ireland making orders on the app for their family members who stay locally to the shop and I’ve been getting good feedback from them.”
Imran also said he and his staff are finding this lockdown more manageable than the first time around as the pressures of panic buyers and supply shortages that emerged during the first lockdown have not resurfaced.
Imran said: “Last time [lockdown] affected a lot of vital supplies like bread and milk because of how strict it was. This time, with manufacturing, production and construction still going, there aren’t any shortages now of any essential supplies and that’s made a difference.
“During the first lockdown sales in most shops went up about 40% or so and the high sales for us have continued as we’re still up about 20 or 25% on all of our sites, so we must’ve picked up extra customers shopping locally.”
However, despite sales remaining strong throughout the current lockdown, Imran said he is feeling the pinch with food to go.
“Food to go has levelled off because I don’t get much passing trade and I’m struggling to build up the sales of hot food again,” he said.
“I can’t afford to keep my kitchen open because it’s so quiet at night so our hot food in store is open until 3pm and from then onwards, if anyone wants burgers or pizzas, they can order on the app.
“I put my butchers online too for a point of difference for customers. I started off with just core lines but I think people want a bit more so I’m going to expand my offering.
“Our other shop in Irvine is really busy with food to go, but it’s located on a main road so I think that’s made the difference. People who are out at work are still going in and buying food, so location is key right now.”