Don’t fear free: Candy Crush Saga is the future of the profitable product October 17, 2013 YOU CAN’T make money on the AppStore. Everything is free and you can’t get consumers to pay for anything.” That’s what I often hear from companies that have dipped their toes into the Apple ecosystem, failed to understand that it’s a new way of doing business, and drowned in the turbulent waters. It’s a common [...]
Don’t fear free: Candy Crush Saga is the future of the profitable product October 16, 2013 YOU CAN’T make money on the AppStore. Everything is free and you can’t get consumers to pay for anything.” That’s what I often hear from companies that have dipped their toes into the Apple ecosystem, failed to understand that it’s a new way of doing business, and drowned in the turbulent waters. It’s a common [...]
Dyson’s new vacuum cleaner is half dust-buster, half sports car October 16, 2013 REVIEW DYSON DC59 ANIMAL £349.99; dyson.co.uk Five Stars It’s hard to write about Dyson without comparing it to Apple. Both companies take something functional and make it beautiful. In a way, Dyson’s achievement is even more impressive – Apple is associated with music and video; all Dyson has to work with is your own filth. [...]
Double trouble: Investors wipe millions from Invesco and Burberry as star names quit October 15, 2013 TWO of the City’s biggest names shocked investors yesterday by stepping down from their jobs, leaving gaping holes at the top of multi-billion pound firms. Invesco’s star fund manager Neil Woodford announced he would leave the company next year after more than two decades, while Burberry chief executive Angela Ahrendts has spectacularly quit the luxury [...]
Shares suffer as Burberry boss trades handbags for handsets October 15, 2013 BURBERRY lost £770m off its stock market value yesterday after the luxury group announced that chief executive Angela Ahrendts will be stepping down. Ahrendts, a 53-year-old American who has been at the helm of the luxury group since 2006, will leave in the middle of next year – swapping her London offices for Silicon Valley [...]
Apple hands its retail empire to fashion veteran October 15, 2013 APPLE’s appointment of Burberry’s Angela Ahrendts as head of its retail and online stores is much more than just another hire for the technology titan. Apple’s retail business is an empire in itself, making revenues of $6.4bn (£4bn) in the first quarter of 2013 – making it just under half the size of Amazon’s entire [...]
Bottom Line: New boss has big shoes to fill and very little experience October 15, 2013 IT MIGHT seem churlish to assume that just because Christopher Bailey is a fashion designer, he might not know his way around a financial statement. Plenty of designers before him have founded labels and led them to commercial success – notably Tom Ford, the former Gucci and YSL creative director who jumped ship in 2004 [...]
Omnicom beats forecasts as its merger nears October 15, 2013 OMNICOM Group, the largest US advertising company, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit as ad spending strengthened in its home market, reinforcing expectations of strong growth for the industry in the second half. The firm also said its $35.1bn (£22bn) merger with French-based Publicis is on track to close early next year, chief executive John Wren [...]
SoftBank to buy Finnish mobile games maker in a £960m deal October 15, 2013 JAPANESE tech and telecoms group SoftBank is to buy a majority stake in Finnish mobile game maker Supercell, sharing the ¥150bn (£960.09m) price tag with subsidiary GungHo Online Entertainment. SoftBank said yesterday that the funding for a 51 per cent stake would be split 80-20 with GungHo, with the deal valuing the Finnish company at [...]
London Report: FTSE 100 rises to October high amid debt talks October 15, 2013 THE UK’S top share index rose to its highest level so far in October yesterday, buoyed by signs of a deal on the US budget and debt ceiling stalemate that has weighed on stock markets. Miners and banks were lifted after US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said Senate leaders had made “tremendous [...]