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Spotify, Tencent Music to swap stakes; Apple, Google woo China

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Spotify, Tencent Music to swap stakes; Apple, Google woo China

TOP NEWS

* Sweden's Spotify AB and China's Tencent Music Entertainment Group are in talks to swap stakes of up to 10% ahead of their expected public flotations in 2018, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources familiar with the matter. Since Spotify has a higher valuation than Tencent Music, the latter's parent, Tencent Holdings Ltd., would reportedly pay the remainder in cash to Spotify.

* Wang Huning, a member of China's powerful Politburo Standing Committee, defended China's censorship of the web at a state-backed World Internet Conference in Wuzhen. The conference was attended by Apple Inc.'s Tim Cook and Google Inc.'s Sundar Pichai, The New York Times reports. Cook highlighted Apple's contribution to Chinese economy, while Pichai made a case for Google's return to China, saying that "a lot of work Google does is to help Chinese companies" and that many Chinese businesses "take advantage of Google" to sell their products outside of China, Press Trust of India reports.

* Infosys Ltd. hired Salil Parekh as its CEO and managing director starting Jan. 2, 2018, for a five-year period. U B Pravin Rao, who is stepping down as interim CEO, will be re-appointed as COO and a director starting Jan. 2, 2018.

PAN-ASIAN NEWS

* Twitter Inc. rolled out its data-friendly app Twitter Lite in 24 more countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, Middle East and Latin America, including Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nepal and Thailand, available on Google's Play Store or on the mobile web.

JAPAN

* Toshiba Corp. and Western Digital Corp. are nearing a settlement in their legal dispute with the latter agreeing to drop any move to block the Japanese company's US$18 billion sale of its flash memory business, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News.

* SoftBank Corp., the telecom unit of SoftBank Group Corp., paid ¥1.7 billion in back taxes due to under-reported income of ¥6.2 billion for the three years through March 2015, The Yomiuri Shimbun reports.

* KDDI Corp. announced the first successful test of 5G transmission of 8K and 4K video on a moving train. The test achieved maximum speeds of 1.7 Gbps on a train traveling at roughly 100 kmph.

* Japan's Toei Animation Company is partnering with Saudi Arabia's Manga Productions to develop animation titles and films for release in both countries, Variety reports.

* Sony Pictures Animation Inc. hired Karen Rupert Toliver as senior vice-president for development from 21st Century Fox Inc.'s 20th Century Fox Animation, Deadline reports. Toliver supervised the production of Fox's "Rio" franchise and the last three "Ice Age" movies. Sony Pictures Animation is a unit of the Sony Motion Pictures Group under the Sony Corp. umbrella.

SOUTH KOREA

* Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s Chief Strategy Officer Young Sohn told Reuters that the company's dealmaking priorities for 2018 included the automotive business, digital health and business software, specifically industrial internet, automation, networking, data transmission, and security.

* KT Corp. has developed an end-to-end network virtualization control system for the 5G network, Yonhap News Agency reports. The new technology allows efficient network operation by controlling traffic from the central control system and will be applied to the 5G network pilot at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

* U.S. International Trade Commission has voted to investigate chipmaker SK Hynix Inc. over patent infringement allegations by U.S-based memory manufacturer Netlist Inc., Yonhap News Agency reports, citing sources.

CHINA, HONG KONG AND TAIWAN

* Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is pledging 10 billion yuan, or US$1.5 billion, to combat poverty in China, Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma announced.

* Xiaomi Inc. denied reports that it is looking to launch an initial public offering in Hong Kong in 2018, Pingwest reports.

* China Unicom plans to form an internal venture capital fund to invest with other companies, as well as help finance Unicom's subsidiaries, Caixin reports.

* Kuaikanmanhua, a Beijing-based app for Chinese manga content, raised US$177 million through its series D financing round, Pe Daily reports. The app, which is popular among Chinese millennials, will invest 500 million yuan in the next three years to nurture talented manga writers.

* Samsung China unveiled the W2018 flip phone in China and has signed a deal with China Telecom Corp. Ltd. to exclusively offer the device, GizmoChina reports.

INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA

* Tata Teleservices Ltd. is considering offering 26% of its stake worth about 50 billion Indian rupees in a local joint venture with American Tower Corp. for discontinuing certain telecom infrastructure commitments, two people privy to the development told The Economic Times (India) reports. The penalty for early termination may reach up to 70 billion rupees.

* SoftBank-backed Paytm is eyeing an investment of up to US$2.5 billion to grow its business within three to five years, in a bid to overtake rivals Flipkart and Amazon, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma told Press Trust of India in an interview.

* Amazon.com Inc. said it has rectified a listing on the platform of its India website selling "renewed" iPhones with hidden disclaimers, BGR India reports. The company said "the image explaining 'refurbished' iPhones got mixed with new product images."

* India's Uber rival Ola launched the dockless bike-sharing service Ola Pedal, initially available to select university campuses throughout India and will expand in the weeks ahead, TechCrunch reports.

* Idea Cellular Ltd. partnered with digital magazine newsstand Magzter Inc. to offer Idea customers access to over 100,000 issues of more than 4,000 national and international magazines in over 60 languages, The Economic Times reports.

SOUTHEAST ASIA

* Singapore's mm2 Asia Ltd.'s mm2 Entertainment unveiled several titles that are part of its 2018 slate, Variety reports. "Liang Xi Mei," directed by local superstar Jack Neo, is headlining the slate and will be released in the 2018 Chinese New Year holiday frame. Other films in the lineup include "Mr Kiasu: The Movie," "Hell Hole," "Zombiepura" and "In My Heart."

* Microsoft Corp. appointed Haris Izmee as Microsoft Indonesia's new president director. Haris will be responsible for managing product marketing, customer support, and accelerating Microsoft's digital transformation in Indonesia.

* BeachTV Indonesia, a subsidiary of Singaporean lifestyle channel BeachTV, is partnering with Nation Pictures, an Indonesian production house, to produce a sports reality series, Variety reports. The deal, worth US$12 million, will span for a period of three years.

* PT Inti Bangun Sejahtera Tbk, an Indonesian telco infrastructure provider, bought 371 telco towers from PT Sampoerna Telekomunikasi Indonesia, an Indonesian telco company, Kontan reports. The deal, worth 414 billion rupiah, will help Inti achieve its target of operating 4,500 towers by the end of this year.

* The Revenue Department of Thailand will debate a draft e-commerce tax targeting foreign companies who profit from digital service transactions such as digital advertising, marketing, music and software application downloads, Post Today reports.

* Thai telco Advanced Info Service said it aims to triple its high-speed AIS Fibre broadband subscribers to over 2 million in three years, the Bangkok Post reports.

* Singapore-based TV distribution company Silver Wolf International entered into a distributions and production partnership with Indonesia's HJ Productions, Variety reports. Silver Wolf also secured rights to be the Asian distributor for drama series produced by Kazakhstan-based media house Khabar Agency.

* Taiwanese distributor Movie Cloud acquired rights to Singaporean film "Jimami Tofu," which will be released in Taiwanese theaters in 2018, Variety reports. South Korea's Opus Pictures brokered the deal. A deal has also been signed with Blue Media Times Beijing.

* Singapore-based global content distribution and development company 108 Media and Aurora Media Holdings entered into a multi-title co-production partnership, where the companies will purchase and develop original content and third-party IP, as well as finance, produce, distribute and license 10 to 15 TV and film projects for the global market, Variety reports.

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

* Alibaba Group is eyeing up the New Zealand market as it seeks to expand the company's reach in the country, The New Zealand Herald reports, citing Alibaba Australia New Zealand Managing Director Maggie Zhou.

* Oscar winner Geoffrey Rush stepped down as president of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts after a theater company disclosed that it received a complaint against the actor for "inappropriate behavior," The Associated Press reports. The AACTA accepted Rush's resignation.

* Macquarie Telecom Group Ltd. announced that it will be opening a new network operations center in Sydney, Australia, Telecom Times reports.

FEATURED NEWS

MarketWeek: Deal chatter lifts US media stocks as political news roils broader markets: Even as political news sent the broader markets into the red Dec. 1, U.S. media investors found some things to celebrate during the week after Thanksgiving. A series of deal announcements boosted shares of several media and entertainment companies.

FEATURED RESEARCH

Consumer Insights: US Consumer Insights 2017 fall survey: 19% own a home assistant device: Home assistant devices, such as Amazon Echo (Alexa) have captured the imagination of U.S. internet households, delivering everything we love about the internet with simple voice commands.

Economics of TV & Film: NBCUniversal's filmed entertainment revenue nears $6B: The company's filmed entertainment division appears on track for a year similar to 2015, with multiple movies pulling in huge box office numbers.

Economics of Networks: DOJ lays out its attack plan to stop AT&T merger with Time Warner: The U.S. Department of Justice laid out its attack plan to stop the AT&T and Time Warner merger. The argument looks much like the one used in an effort to stop Comcast from buying NBCU, which was eventually settled out of court with conditions.

Joji Sakurai, Nicole Shiwon Kim, 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.