1 Apple profits slide, first time in 15 years
(Rupert Neate in The Guardian) Apple has reported its first decline in annual
sales and profit in 15 years. The Silicon Valley company, which had bounced
back from near bankruptcy in 1997 to become the world’s most valuable company
today, told investors that it had sold $215.6bn worth of iPhones, Watches, Mac
computers and other products in the year to 24 September.
That works out as an 8% decrease on Apple’s record
$233.7bn of sales it collected in the previous year. The decline in sales hit
the company’s profits, which fell 14% to $45.7bn.
It is the first time Apple’s annual sales or profits
have declined since 2001, and some analysts are concerned that the world may
have reached “peak Apple”, meaning nearly everyone who wants (and can afford)
an iPhone or other products already has one.
The fall in sales was mostly down to declining sales
of the iPhone, which is by far Apple’s most important product and accounts for
two-thirds of all sales. Apple sold 45.5m iPhones in the quarter, a 5% drop on
last year.
Despite the decline in sales and profits, Tim Cook,
Apple’s chief executive, said: “Our strong September quarter results cap a very
successful fiscal 2016 for Apple. We’re thrilled with the customer response to
iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch Series 2.”
Apple forecast that it would sell $76-$78bn of
products in the coming quarter, a 1% increase on last year. The company’s
cashpile has grown to $237bn, up from $231.5bn three months ago.
2 Low oil price hits expat remittances (Issac John
in Khaleej Times) As low oil prices continued to hit remittance flows from the
GCC and Russia, India, the world's largest remittance recipient in 2015, is to
record a five per cent drop in remittance to $65.5 billion in 2016, the World
Bank has said in a report.
However, despite the drop, India, which attracted
about $69 billion in remittances in 2015, is likely to stay at the top as the
world's largest remittance recipient, closely followed by China at $65.2
billion, the bank said.
Overall, remittances to South Asia are expected to
decline by 2.3 per cent in 2016, following a 1.6 per cent decline in 2015 due
to weak economic growth in remittances-source countries and cyclic low oil
prices, the World Bank said.
"Remittances from the GCC countries continued
to decline due to lower oil prices and labour market 'nationalisation' policies
in Saudi Arabia," the bank said. In addition, structural factors have also
played a role in dampening remittances growth. Anti-money laundering efforts
have prompted banks to close down accounts of money transfer operators,
diverting activity to informal channels, it added.
In 2016, remittance flows to low and middle-income
countries, or LMICs, are projected to reach $442 billion, marking an increase
of 0.8 per cent over 2015. "Against a backdrop of tepid global growth,
remittance flows to LMICs seem to have entered a 'new normal' of slow
growth," the report said.
Other top remittance recipient countries include the
Philippines at $29.1 billion, Mexico at $28.1 billion, Nigeria at $20 billion,
Egypt at $18.4 billion, Bangladesh at $14.9 billion, Vietnam at $13.4 billion
and Indonesia at $9.8 billion.
3 The epidemic of online shaming (Daniel Silas
Adamson on BBC) A BBC investigation has found that thousands of young women in
conservative societies across North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia are
being shamed or blackmailed with private and sometimes sexually explicit
images.
Revenge porn is a problem in every country on Earth,
but the potency of sexual images as weapons of intimidation stems from their
capacity to inflict shame on women - and in some societies, shame is a much
more serious matter.
"In the West, it's a different culture,"
says Inam al-Asha, a psychologist and women's rights activist in Amman, Jordan.
"A naked picture might only humiliate a girl. But in our society, a naked
picture might lead to her death. And even if her life isn't finished
physically, it is finished socially and professionally. People stop associating
with her and she ends up ostracised and isolated."
In Saudi Arabia, the problem is so serious that the
religious police have set up a special unit to pursue blackmailers and to help
women who are being threatened. Further east, Pavan Duggal, a lawyer with India's
Supreme Court, talks of a "torrent" of cases involving digital images
of women. "My guesstimate is going to be that we are seeing thousands of
such cases [in India] on a daily basis," he says.
And in Pakistan, Nighat Dad, head of an NGO
dedicated to making the online world safer for women, says "two or three
girls or women every day" - about 900 per year - contact her organisation
because they are being threatened.
The more devastating the consequences of public
exposure, the more power the perpetrator has over the victim. It is in India
and Pakistan, however, that the use of mobile phones to record sexual assault
appears to be most widespread.
In August 2016, the Times of India found that
hundreds - perhaps thousands - of video clips of rape were being sold in shops
across the northern state of Uttar Pradesh every day. One shopkeeper in Agra
told the newspaper: "Porn is passé. These real-life crimes are the
rage."
No comments:
Post a Comment