TOP NEWS
* Indonesian ride-hailing provider PT Go-Jek Indonesia will allocate US$500 million for its international expansion, beginning with ride-hailing services and followed by other platforms such as Go-Car, Go-Food and Go-Send. Go-Jek will enter Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines within the next few months. Uber Technologies Inc. exited the Southeast Asian market by selling its regional operations to GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd. in March, for an undisclosed sum.
* India's Department of Telecommunications approved the sale of about 9,000 stand-alone towers of Idea Cellular Ltd. to a local unit of American Tower Corp. for 40 billion Indian rupees, a top official from the telecom department told The Economic Times (India).
* Chinese internet giant Sina Corp. is looking at a secondary listing on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, Reuters reports, citing sources. The company is reportedly working with advisers to implement its plan by the fourth quarter. Nasdaq-listed Sina is yet to finalize the size of the offering.
JAPAN
* Toshiba Corp. said that Yasuo Naruke, CEO of chip unit Toshiba Memory Corp., will step down from his duties as vice president at the parent company. The move will allow Naruke to focus on his duties at Toshiba Memory after its sale to a consortium led by private equity firm Bain Capital LP is completed June 1, the Sankei reports.
* Sony Corp.'s Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC CEO John Kodera said portable games will continue to have a role in Sony's PlayStation business model, Bloomberg News reports. The PlayStation chief, who took over from Andrew House in October 2017, marked a departure from his predecessor by saying "it's necessary to continue thinking of (portable gaming) as one method to deliver more gaming experiences."
* Nintendo Co. Ltd. launched a cheaper, dockless version of its Switch console in Japan. The console, which comes with only a tablet and two Joy-Cons, targets households that already own the original system.
SOUTH KOREA
* Apple Korea Ltd. will pay back 66,000 South Korean won to each of the customers who paid for an iPhone 6 battery replacement and subsequent models from Jan. 1, 2017 to Dec. 28, 2017, iNews 24 reports. The decision was made in accordance with the measures taken by the Apple Inc. headquarters.
* Kakao Corp. established Kakao G, a blockchain subsidiary to serve as a holding company of its blockchain-related subsidiaries, including Ground X, News 1 reports. Kakao G will be headed by Kakao Investment CEO Park Ji-hwan.
* Kakao Corp. made an update to its mobile messenger service KakaoTalk for Alphabet Inc.-owned Google Inc.'s Android and PC versions, with features including a reply function to a particular message and a Kakao TV mini player function to watch videos together with users in the same chatroom, Digital Times reports. The iOS version will also be updated soon.
* LG Uplus Corp. and Hanwha Precision Machinery Co. Ltd. successfully demonstrated a beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone flight for the first time in South Korea, ET News reports. The remote control of the drone is currently based on a Long-Term Evolution network, but the telco is aiming to improve the control by using a 5G ultra-low latency technology within this year.
* KT Corp. created a task force for inter-Korean economic cooperation, aimed at supporting joint projects on information and communications technology between North Korea and South Korea following the two countries' landmark summit last month.
CHINA
* Taiwan's National Communications Commission fined telcos Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan Mobile Co. Ltd. and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co. Ltd. for the public chaos brought about by the NT$499 4G package promotion, Taiwan News reports. Chunghwa was fined NT$2 million, while the other two were each fined NT$600,000. The telcos reportedly failed to prepare for the massive influx of customers interested in getting the plan, resulting to unanswered customer service calls, long lines at stores, and slow response times by customer service apps.
* Qualcomm Technologies Inc. is partnering with Baidu Inc. to explore on-device artificial intelligence applications, with an aim of deploying the Baidu PaddlePaddle open-source deep learning framework to mobile devices powered by Qualcomm Inc.'s Snapdragon through the Open Neural Network Exchange convertor.
* Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s cloud computing business signed an agreement with MissFresh Bianligou, a Beijing-based app selling fresh foods. The two companies will use Tencent's AI technology and big data to develop human-less retail services.
* Celestial Tiger Entertainment secured first and exclusive pay TV rights to China's top four highest-grossing films of all time, including "Wolf Warrior 2" and "The Mermaid," Rapid TV News reports. The pan-Asian channel provider also bagged deals with Emperor Motion Pictures for "Operation Red Sea" and with MM2 Entertainment Pte. Ltd for "Detective Chinatown Vol. 2."
* Taiwan-based M17 Entertainment Ltd. is teaming up with Japanese entertainment production company Avex Inc. to hold a competition from May 27 to June 23 to discover top talent on M17's livestreaming platform 17 Live.
* OneMena, a Beijing-based app developer targeting Arabic speaking countries, completed a series A fundraising round, PEDaily reports. IDG led the investment, but financial details were not disclosed.
INDIA
* Facebook Inc. is close to hiring a new head for its Indian operations, who could be coming from the media and entertainment, or from the fast-moving consumer goods industry, a highly placed source told The Economic Times (India).
* STAR India Pvt. Ltd.'s video-streaming platform Hotstar reached a new benchmark with 8.26 million concurrent viewers signing into the platform to watch the Indian Premier League cricket match between Chennai and Hyderabad, Hotstar Chief Executive Ajit Mohan told Reuters in an interview.
* Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is initializing the assembly of printed circuit boards in India by establishing its surface-mount technology line in Sriperumbudur near Chennai, in partnership with its contract manufacturing partner Flex, P Sanjeev, vice president for sales at Huawei Technologies India Pvt. Ltd. - Consumer Business Group, told The Economic Times (India).
SOUTHEAST ASIA
* Southeast Asian video streaming provider iflix Sdn. Bhd., which recently introduced short-duration video streaming features, is partnering with local studios in Malaysia and Indonesia to produce short-form content, Telset reports, citing Tiara Sugiyono, head of marketing at iflix Indonesia.
* Malaysian telco DiGi Telecommunications Sdn. Bhd. entered struck a partnership with Petronas Dagangan Bhd., a marketing arm of Malaysian oil company Petronas, or Petroliam Nasional Bhd., to collaborate in the marketing and digital services development. Digi's services will also be made available at selected Petronas gas stations.
* Thai telco Advanced Info Service PCL partnered with Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc. for an AIS-programmed Redmi S2 handset in Thailand. The Xiaomi Redmi S2 from AIS can be pre-ordered online from June 4 and will be available in AIS stores from June 8.
* Thailand's cabinet approved amendments to a draft data protection law — the first of its kind in Thailand — which is expected to mirror provisions in the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, Prachachat reports. The draft bill now awaits approval from Thailand's parliament, the National Legislative Assembly, before being made into law.
AUSTRALIA
* Australia's Office of the eSafety Commissioner called off an upcoming Facebook trial that would ask Australian users to send naked photos of themselves to the social network as it attempts to stop revenge porn, The Australian reports. The eSafety Commissioner reportedly stepped in amid data privacy concerns along the lines of the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
* The Australian Broadcasting Corp. revealed that it spends A$2 million annually on promoting its content Google and Facebook, the Sydney Morning Herald reports, citing ABC CFO Louise Higgins. The broadcaster's yearly expenditure of Facebook ads was about A$1.4 million, while A$500,000 was spent on boosting ABC's Google search results, she said.
* NBN Co. Ltd. canceled plans to offer a 100Mbps service to households that are on the fixed-wireless component of Australia's National Broadband Network, The Australian reports, citing NBN CEO Bill Morrow.
* Chorus Ltd. is collaborating with Nokia Corp. to trial the latter's wavelength services solution as part of the New Zealand-based telecom infrastructure provider's "One Open Access Network Infrastructure" plan, an open platform that enables Chorus to speed up the monetization of its infrastructure.
FEATURED NEWS
Digital Hollywood: China, Hollywood relationship strained but still valuable: Chinese investment in the U.S. film business has largely dried up, while U.S. investment in the booming Chinese industry remains challenged by cultural and legal barriers, entertainment investment experts at Digital Hollywood agreed.
VivaTech 2018: Macron defends new EU data protection rules: French President Emmanuel Macron defended the European Union's tough new data privacy laws on the eve of the General Data Protection Regulation, as tech companies brace for more regulatory scrutiny.
More regulation, increased trust pushes more users into public clouds: As cloud computing technology is gradually gaining trust among businesses and financial institutions, industry experts expect the number of private clouds to drop, mainly as a result of more regulation and the role of established, public players.
FEATURED RESEARCH
Multichannel Trends: Kagan report: U.S. Cable Industry Overview: The current cable industry essentials are covered in Kagan's 2018 "U.S. Cable Industry Overview," now in PowerPoint format.
Multichannel Trends: Kagan MediaTalk Podcast: Episode 1: Kagan is introducing MediaTalk, a podcast on our coverage of the quickly evolving media landscape.
Joji Sakurai, Myungran Ha, Frances Wang, Patrick Tibke and Kevin Osmond contributed to this report. The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 7 a.m. Hong Kong time. Some external links may require a subscription. Links are current as of publication time, and we are not responsible if those links are unavailable later.
