TOP NEWS
* Tencent Music Entertainment Group is being probed by Chinese authorities over its exclusive licensing deals with major record labels, an investigation that may complicate Tencent Holdings Ltd.'s plan to acquire a 10% stake in Universal Music Group Inc., Bloomberg News reported. China's State Administration of Market Regulation launched the investigation in January, with the company's deals with Universal Music, Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and Warner Music Group Corp. under review.
* U.S.-based chipmaker GlobalFoundries Inc. sued its larger rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. for patent infringement. GlobalFoundries claims that chip manufacturing technologies used by TSMC infringed 16 of its patents. The company is pursuing an order to stop the import of products containing chips produced with the infringing technologies into the U.S. and Germany. GlobalFoundries did not specify the products affected by the alleged infringement but listed Qualcomm Inc., Google LLC, Apple Inc. among TSMC's affected customers.
* LG Electronics Inc. introduced Whale, a web browser it co-developed with South Korean search engine Naver Corp. that is optimized for use on LG's dual-screen technology. Based on Google's open-source Chromium browser, Whale supports split-screen mode with an adjustable divider to enable browsing two sites in the same tab.
JAPAN
* Nintendo Co. Ltd. will launch mobile game Mario Kart Tour on Sept. 25 for Android and iOS devices, the company revealed on Twitter. The game was jointly developed by Nintendo and Japanese mobile and online multimedia services company DeNA Co. Ltd.
* Supership Inc., a marketing unit of KDDI Corp., formed a business alliance with Chinese digital marketing company MiningLamp Technology and its Japanese subsidiary Leading Smart Systems, The Nikkei reported. Under the deal, Supership aims to capitalize data on Chinese consumers in an effort to launch products targeting Chinese tourists coming to Japan.
* Nippon Telegraph And Telephone West Corp. opened a support facility called LINKSPARK in Osaka as part of its efforts to transform the way companies undertake their businesses using digital technologies.
SOUTH KOREA
* KT Corp. and Belgium-based Tessares jointly standardized "Access Traffic Steering Switching and Splitting" technology, which is a network ability to configure policies to manage multiple accesses, and conducted a successful test on 5G commercial networks, ET News reported. The telco more than halved initial latency of transmission control protocol traffic and verified that additional accesses can be added regardless of the configuration of 5G networks, either stand-alone or non-stand-alone.
* Naver unveiled artificial intelligence-powered call service, tentatively called AI Call, which was developed by its company-in-company unit Glace, ZDNet Korea reported. The next-generation smart call service uses voice recognition, natural language processing and speech synthesis technologies to help customers make reservations without having to talk to a real person.
CHINA, HONG KONG AND TAIWAN
* Netflix Inc. unveiled the premiere dates for three Chinese-language original series it has made in Taiwan, Variety reported. The streaming giant will stream crime thriller "Nowhere Man" on Oct. 31; action-comedy "Triad Princess" will be aired Dec. 6; and period thriller "The Ghost Bride" will start streaming in January 2020.
* Toyota Motor Corp. is partnering with autonomous-driving company Pony.AI Inc. to co-develop autonomous driving systems. Pony.ai, which has offices in both China and Silicon Valley, has been testing its robotaxi pilot service, PonyPilot, in China and secured a robotaxi operation permit in California in June. The partnership comes as Toyota aims to become a mobility company firmly rooted in China.
* Online comics database Kuaikan Manhua completed a US$125 million funding led by Tencent, 36Kr reported. The proceeds will be used for building intellectual property ownership and community expansion.
INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA
* Microsoft Corp.'s India launched "Digital Governance Tech Tour" program to train government information technology professionals in artificial intelligence and intelligent cloud computing technologies, The Economic Times (India) reported. The company will arrange a number of physical and virtual workshops to train 5,000 government IT personnel in a year.
* Chinese smartphone maker Vivo is looking to invest 75 billion Indian rupees in a bid to expand local manufacturing in India, The Economic Times (India) reported. The company is planning to quadruple its present local production capacity of 25 million phones a year to more than 100 million devices.
* The pending appointment of an auctioneer and work on draft auction documents is expected to delay the spectrum sale in India, including that of 5G airwaves, to early 2020, The Economic Times (India) reported. The spectrum sale was originally scheduled for December this year.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
* Singapore-based ride-hailing company GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd. is planning to invest "several hundred million dollars" in Vietnam to grow its business in the country, Reuters reported, citing an interview with Grab President Ming Maa.
* The Royal Thai government is looking to overhaul five state-owned corporations, including telcos TOT PCL and CAT Telecom PCL, The Bangkok Insight reported.
* Thai Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is interested in investing in Thailand's 5G technology, The Standard reported.
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
* Macquarie Media Ltd.'s major shareholders Mark Carnegie and John Singleton will reportedly accept Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings Ltd.'s offer to acquire Macquarie Media, provided an independent report, due in early-September, recommends the offer, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. Nine Entertainment recently announced an all-cash offer to fully acquire radio broadcaster Macquarie Media.
* NEXTDC Ltd. hired global contractor Multiplex to deliver the first phase of its new 20-MW hyperscale data center, P2, in East Perth, Telecompaper reported.
FEATURED NEWS
Data Dispatch: Cloud competition driving investment, M&A in cybersecurity sector: The changing nature of data storage and the increased move to hybrid cloud solutions is creating M&A targets of some of the higher-performing, small to midsize cybersecurity companies, analysts said.
FEATURED RESEARCH
Economics of Internet: Netflix content spend increases as new players enter market: Netflix spent an estimated US$7.53 billion in amortized content during 2018. That number is expected to more than double in our new five-year outlook.
Nozomi Ibayashi, Myungran Ha, Emily Lai, Ed Eduard and Wil Hathaway 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.
