France warns Cameron on EU exit vote February 25, 2013 DAVID CAMERON will get nowhere with his efforts to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU and should instead try to convince voters of the merits of the union as it currently stands, French finance minister Pierre Moscovici told an audience in the City yesterday. The minister argued that France and other nations are looking to [...]
Chinese factory recovery stalls in February on export order dip February 25, 2013 A TURNAROUND in export orders put the brakes on the Chinese manufacturing recovery during February, according to a prominent business survey released yesterday. The health of China’s manufacturing sector was improving in the second month of 2013, according to Markit and HSBC’s purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the Asian giant, but at a substantially reduced pace compared [...]
City Views | Are you worried by the UK’s rating downgrade? February 25, 2013 DAVID KING TOKIO MARINE I am personally not worried about the UK’s downgrade as I don’t think it really affects me. I would be more concerned if my company’s credit rating was downgraded. JEREMY STEVENS MGM It was only a matter of time, but I’m not too worried. When America’s credit rating was downgraded, the [...]
Vodafone looks to expand into TV and internet February 25, 2013 VODAFONE is planning to break into offering new services, such as broadband and pay-TV, in a bid to combat declining mobile phone revenues. Vittorio Colao, Vodafone’s chief executive, said the company was planning to introduce “unified services” – contracts that bundle together mobile, broadband, landline telephone and TV – across Europe in coming years. Colao’s [...]
Pearson denies FT sale talk and sets out plans for restructuring February 25, 2013 THE NEW chief executive of publishing group Pearson yesterday insisted that the Financial Times is not for sale, as he revealed a £200m restructuring plan intended to focus the firm on its growing digital education business. Pearson posted a one per cent rise in adjusted 2012 operating profit to £936m yesterday, though one-offs in the [...]
Nokia goes downmarket February 25, 2013 Nokia has expanded its Lumia smartphone range in an attempt to attract customers less willing to fork out for high-end devices. The Finnish company’s chief executive Stephen Elop yesterday unveiled two mid-range handsets – the Lumia 520 and 720 – as he tries to re-establish Nokia as a top handset seller.
EE sees rapid growth February 25, 2013 The UK’s first 4G network, EE, is signing up customers at a rate of knots, with sales growing by 10 per cent each week since it launched last November, EE chief executive Olaf Swantee said yesterday. Orange and T-Mobile owner EE has not revealed how many of customers are on its 4G plan.
Windows Phone sales rocket February 25, 2013 Sales of phones running Microsoft’s Windows Phone software have grown by a staggering 240 per cent in a year, now making up 6.2 per cent of the market. Figures from research firm Kantar show that the software – which runs on handsets from Nokia among others – overtook BlackBerry in terms of market share during [...]
Samsung Galaxy S4 set for March February 25, 2013 Samsung has announced that its latest high-end smartphone, the Galaxy S4 will be unveiled on 14 March. The Korean firm’s Galaxy S range has been the biggest challenger to Apple’s iPhone, with the previous S3 model selling more than 40m units.
O2 boss says 4G auction forecast contained flaws February 25, 2013 GEORGE Osborne should never have expected to raise the £3.5bn he had banked on from an auction of 4G mobile spectrum, the chief executive of O2 has said. Ronan Dunne, the boss of the UK’s second-largest mobile network, told City A.M. that the £2.3bn raised for the Treasury was “not actually a surprise to us” [...]
