1. Facebook
Facebook has just acquired Instagram, a mobile phone photo-sharing company whereby you can edit your pictures and send them to your online network. Facebook hopes that they’ll draw in more consumers who rely on smart phones or tablets. The deal is the social media giant’s largest to date and is worth around £1billion in cash and shares. “[It’s] the first time we’ve ever acquired a product and company with so many users. We don’t plan on doing many more of these, if any at all,” Mark Zuckberberg wrote on his Facebook page. Going mobile has proven problematic for Facebook, as the company decided not to display ads on its mobile applications. This has made it difficult to generate revenue and since then, Facebook has attempted to place ads in the news feeds of its mobile users. Meanwhile, Instagram launched in 2010 and was named Apple’s top app last year, with 5 million users by June 2011 ballooning to 30 million by April 2012. It’s exponential growth is expected to continue, as it is now available on Android devices as well as Apple’s.
2. John Whittaker Whittaker, 70, is chairman of leading property business The Peel Group, a
privately owned firm that he has built up over the past 40 years. But he is also deputy chairman of Capital Shopping Centres after selling the Trafford Centre in Manchester to it in return for a 20 per cent stake. CSC, a FTSE 100 company, owns 14 of Britain’s largest malls, including Lakeside Shopping Centre in Thurrock, Essex, the Manchester Arndale, Braehead in Glasgow and Eldon Square in Newcastle. Despite the recession and the convenience of internet shopping, the retail sector continues to work hard in gaining back consumer confidence. Also, CSC achieved 97 per cent occupancy levels last year and core rental income rose 31 per cent to £364million. It also has plans to extend malls and buy land. Whittaker is one of the wealthiest men in Britain and despite CSC shares falling from 390p to 322p since the Trafford Centre deal was completed, he clearly expects the price to rise from here. It could be worth following his lead and buying a few shares. CSC pays a reasonable dividend too – 15p last year, which amounts to a 4.6 per cent yield at today’s share price.
3. Samsung Samsung battles to the top of the smartphone ladder as HTC plummets
with a 0% year-on-year profit drop, its largest fall since listing a decade ago. The Taiwanese firm’s net income after tax was 4.46bn New Taiwan dollars (£95m), lower than the NT$4.62bn consensus forecast. In comparison, Samsung is one of the only larger manufacturers to compete with the likes of Apple’s iPhone for unstoppable progress, showing operating profits doubling from 2.95tn won (£1.6bn) to 5.8tn won in the first quarter. Gains from selling phones and television sets helped mask a slump in the group’s chip business. The Galaxy range has done particularly well, with the company selling 44m smartphones in the three months to 31 March, exceeding Apple’s shipments “by a significant margin” and tripling the number reported a year earlier, according to Seoul-based analyst CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.
12 entrepreneurcountry
The Mo Winne Lose
Amazon conquers t
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