TOP NEWS
* Reliance Industries Ltd. Chairman Mukesh Ambani is mulling an initial public offering for Reliance Jio in late 2018 or early 2019, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg Quint.
* Tencent Holdings Ltd. plans to buy a 5% stake in Chinese supermarket chain Yonghui Superstores Co. Ltd. The investment has upped Tencent's rivalry with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., according to Reuters.
* Bharti Airtel Ltd. said the company and another entity will sell a combined 20% in its direct-to-home arm Bharti Telemedia to global private equity firm Warburg Pincus for US$350 million.
* Nintendo Co. Ltd. is seeking new partnerships with software developers to strengthen its smartphone game lineup after its five-game collaboration with DeNA Co. Ltd. fell behind schedule, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. Nintendo has already sold 10 million Switch units around the world, according to Nintendo's internal sales figures.
* Tokyo-based live-streaming startup Candee Inc. announced that it raised ¥2.45 billion in the funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures Japan joined by NTT Docomo Ventures Inc., Opt Ventures, Gree Ventures, Daiichi Shokai, Mizuho Capital and YJ Capital Inc. Proceeds will be used to increase the content on its social video platform Live Shop.
* Chikaku Inc., the developer and operator of video- and photo-sharing service Mago Channel, raised ¥150 million through a private equity placement with Japanese venture capital firm Incubate Fund, The Nikkei reports. The move has brought the total investment in Chikaku to more than ¥300 million, according to TechCrunch.
* SoftBank Group Corp.'s Lydia Jett, an investor who focuses on consumer internet and e-commerce at Softbank Vision Fund, is stepping down from the board of Indian e-commerce company Snapdeal, Techstory reports. Saurabh Jalan, an investment professional at Softbank Group U.S., will replace Jett.
* Moody's Japan changed Toshiba Corp.'s rating outlook to "stable" from "negative" for raising about ¥600 billion worth of new shares through a third-party allocation, Reuters reports.
* NEC Corp. and Indian unit NEC Technologies India Ltd. will set up the FIWARE Lab node in India starting April 2018 to offer a cloud environment for experimenting and innovating with FIWARE-based technologies for smart cities. The companies aim to achieve more than US$150 million in revenue from India and other parts of Southeast Asia by fiscal year 2020 through the technologies.
SOUTH KOREA
* The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to create 260,000 new jobs in information and communications technology industries, KyungHyang Biz reports. In addition, the government will establish ICT-related graduate schools to nurture future talents and build three big-data research centers.
* LG Group plans to invest 19 trillion South Korean won in new innovative industries including electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and OLED next-generation display technology, ZDNet Korea reports. At the meeting with the government, LG also announced its plan to hire 10,000 new workers in 2018.
* Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Amazon.com Inc. will showcase premium quality video content streaming service through Amazon Prime Video, wherein users can watch video content in HDR10 Plus quality, a technology Samsung developed to optimize contrast ratio.
* KT Skylife will begin an 8K UHD pilot broadcasting project through South Korea-Japan technology cooperation and start building infrastructure to utilize the new Mugunghwa 7 satellite for UHD multi-channel services, ZDNet Korea reports. KT SkyLife plans to start 8K UHD pilot broadcasting in February 2018.
CHINA, HONG KONG AND TAIWAN
* Alibaba's cloud computing business will work with Dutch semiconductor maker NXP Semiconductors NV in a move that could bolster the Chinese e-commerce giant's smart home and payment offerings.
* Amazon Web Services Inc. teamed up with cloud services provider Ningxia Western Cloud Data Technology Co. Ltd. to launch a second AWS location in China's Ningxia region.
* Chinese travel planning startup Mafengwo raised US$133 million through its series D financing round, Caixin reports. The investment, led by Ocean Link and Temasek, will be used for data development and content supply.
INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA
* American Tower Corp. Chairman and CEO James Taiclet told The Economic Times (India) that the company will explore more tower asset acquisitions in India, its biggest international market.
* Spuul Digital Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. struck a catalog deal with Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd. wherein Spuul will offer 100 movies from Shemaroo such as "Mughal-E-Azam," "Anand," "Masoom" and "Chupke Chupke," Television Post reports.
* Indian travel and lifestyle channel Travelxp 4K will debut in Germany on Dec. 13 via the direct-to-home platform HD+.
* Xiaomi Inc. appointed Deepak Nakra, Samsung India's former director of sales, as offline sales head for India, the Hindustan Times reports. Meanwhile, the Chinese company's expansion plans in India include selling electric vehicles and entering the payments bank business, according to The Economic Times (India).
* Reliance Communications Ltd. subsidiary Global Cloud Xchange, or GCX, announced it will offer its IP transit solutions to Vietnam's CMC Telecom Inc. in Hong Kong and Singapore with CMC to deploy a virtual point of presence for GCX in Hanoi.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
* Seonghwan Kim has been appointed president of Samsung Electronics in Thailand, Siam Phone reports. Having been with Samsung for over 17 years, Kim's previous positions include head of IM global sales innovation and president of Samsung Electronics Mexico SA de CV.
* Chinese software and internet service company Kingsoft Cloud Holdings Ltd. tapped Equinix Inc.'s International Business Exchange data center in Singapore to expand in Southeast Asia.
* Malaysia-based telco Axiata Group Berhad appointed David Dean to its board as an independent non-executive director. Dean is a former senior partner and global head of the technology and telecom practice at The Boston Consulting Group.
* Thai telecom equipment company ALT TELECOM Public Co. Ltd. signed a memorandum of understanding with telecom infrastructure provider edotco Group Sdn. Bhd. to explore business opportunities in Thailand, RYT9 reports.
* Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission received a payment of 10.96 billion baht from Advanced Wireless Network Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Thai telco and mobile operator AIS, Prachachat reports. This is AIS' second payment for the portion of the 1800 MHz band.
* Thailand's Broadcasting, Television and Telecommunications Research and Development Fund for Public Interest will allocate 1 billion baht to support research and development of innovations geared toward the government's Thailand 4.0 plan, TNN24 reports. Interested parties may submit their proposals until Jan. 31, 2018.
* PT Solusi Tunas Pratama Tbk, an Indonesia-based telco infrastructure leasing company, recorded 139.22 billion rupiah of net profit for the first nine months of 2017, IndoTelko reports. Most of Solusi's revenue came from its telco clients XL Axiata, Tri Indonesia, Telkomsel and Indosat.
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
* Fairfax Media Ltd. said its Australian Metro Publishing business will incorporate Google Inc.'s ad-tech and programmatic advertising across its mastheads including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review and lifestyle properties.
* Australia's National Rugby League unveiled the new NRL Digital Network, which brings together NRL.com, the 16 clubs, NSWRL and QRL digital assets to help the league reach a wider audience. Along with the new-look websites, the 19 apps for the NRL, clubs and states have been upgraded and are available on iOS and Android.
FEATURED NEWS
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FEATURED RESEARCH
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Nozomi Ibayashi, Nicole Shiwon Kim, Frances Wang, Kevin Osmond and Wil Hathaway contributed to this reports. The Daily Dose has an editorial deadline of 7 a.m. Hong Kong time. Some external links may require a subscription.
