Big tech hits back as CMA flags ‘harmful” cloud dominance by Microsoft and AWS July 31, 2025 Big Tech companies have pushed back against a damning report from the UK’s competition watchdog, which warned that Microsoft and Amazon’s dominance in the £10.5bn cloud computing market is stifling competition and harming UK businesses. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday published the final findings of its 21-month cloud investigation, concluding that Microsoft [...]
Drax hikes dividend despite profit dip amid power station update July 31, 2025 Drax has told investors it was close to agreeing a controversial contract with the government for its wood pellet power station after hiking its dividend despite revealing falling profit. The London-listed group said the energy transition was “creating significant value opportunities aligned with the UK’s energy needs” in an interim update in which it revealed [...]
Klarna receives regulatory approval to take on Monzo and Revolut July 30, 2025 Swedish fintech Klarna has received an electronic money institution licence from the Financial Conduct Authority, setting the firm up to compete with UK firms Monzo and Revolut. The licence will allow Klarna to offer its 11 million UK customers savings accounts and also pave the way for a debit card launch. Abby Vickers, Klarna’s head [...]
Taylor Wimpey: Construction jumps but cladding costs wipe out profit July 30, 2025 Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey posted a double-digit rise in housing completions, but a £222.2m hit from fixing combustible cladding pushed the company to a half-year loss. Shares fell nearly five per cent in early morning trades. The number of houses built in the first half of 2025 totalled 5,264, up from 4,728 last year, the company [...]
Octopus heat pump ad claim row boils over July 30, 2025 A war of words has erupted between energy providers after an Octopus Energy advert was banned for claiming that households could have a heat pump installed for as little as £500. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) upheld a complaint against the Greg Jackson-run energy giant, ruling that not enough customers were eligible for the £500 [...]
Here’s how to make sure Great British Railways stays on track July 29, 2025 If Labour must steam ahead with its plan to renationalise the railways, there’s a few things it must do to make it a success, says Emma Revell One of the least surprising and most ideologically consistent aspects of Labour’s first year in office has been the impetus behind Great British Railways. The new body, which [...]
Breadmakers Hovis and Kingsmill butter up £75m merger July 26, 2025 Bread producers Hovis and Kingsmill are set for a historic merger with their owners expected to ink an agreement after months of discussion. Kingsmill, whose immediate parent Allied Bakeries is owned by London-listed Associated British Foods (ABF), and Hovis could benefit from up to £50m of annual cost savings from a merger. The proposed agreement, [...]
Chatbots are growing fast – but search still rules the web July 24, 2025 While chatbots like ChatGPT are seeing explosive growth, they are still a long way from overtaking traditional search engines – and Google remains firmly control of how people find information online. A recent report found that between April 2024 and March 2025, visits to AI chatbots surged by nearly 81 per cent year on year, [...]
CVS halts acquisitions in the UK amid competition watchdog probe July 24, 2025 CVS has halted UK acquisitions and focused on Australian expansion due to a probe by the UK’s competition watchdog into the pet sector. The vet group has also delayed its full-year results until October to allow shareholders to “have more visibility” and details of the Provisional Decision of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which [...]
CMA targets Apple and Google’s market dominance to strengthen UK app market July 23, 2025 The UK’s competition watchdog has proposed a sweeping shake-up of the mobile app economy, with plans to designate Apple and Google as having “strategic market status” (SMS) – a move that could open the door to new rivals, lower development costs, and broadly loosen the tech giants’ tight grip on the mobile ecosystem. In a [...]