TOP NEWS
* India's Tata Group has informed the government that it plans to shut down its telecom unit Tata Teleservices Ltd. Tata Group CFO Saurabh Agrawal and Tata Teleservices Managing Director N Srinath have met with the Department of Telecommunications to discuss the surrender or sale of their spectrum holdings, according to The Economic Times (India).
* Apple Inc. is "looking into" a potential battery problem in the iPhone 8 Plus following reports of the new iPhones popping open due to swollen batteries in China, Taiwan, and Japan, Reuters reports.
* Indian media company Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. has agreed to acquire 9X Media Pvt. Ltd. and INX Music for an all-cash consideration of 1.6 billion rupees. ZEEL will also acquire the 26% stake it does not own in Zee Turner Ltd., its joint venture with Turner International India Pvt. Ltd.
JAPAN
* SoftBank Group Corp.'s Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. are working on the final details of a merger that may be announced by the end of October, Bloomberg News reported Oct. 6, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
* SoftBank Group has increased U.K.-based staff at ARM Holdings plc by 24% to 2,173 from 1,749 since acquiring the Cambridge-based chip designer in September 2016, the Financial Times (London) reports.
* Sony Corp. is returning to robotics twelve years after ditching the business, The Nikkei reports. Sony, which recently returned to profitability after a prolonged period of losses, plans to launch a robot dog for home use in spring 2018.
* Fujitsu Ltd. won the order to build Japan's fastest supercomputer, The Nikkei reports. The ¥5 billion supercomputer ordered by Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology will provide an artificial intelligence development framework for companies and research institutions.
* A Tokyo court fined advertising giant Dentsu Inc. ¥500,000 for an employee's suicide that was ruled as karoshi, or death-by-overwork, in a rare example of a Japanese company being held accountable for labor violations, The Nikkei said. However, the low penalty was likely to generate further debate about Japanese labor standards, according to the report.
SOUTH KOREA
* The U.S. Department of Justice asked the U.S. Supreme Court to deny Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s recent petition for a fresh review of part of the case, ZDNet Korea reports.
* Android Pay, a digital payment platform by Alphabet Inc.-owned Google Inc., is unlikely to be introduced in South Korea until the end of 2017, The Korea Economic Daily reports. Google is reportedly struggling to reach an agreement with South Korean credit card companies on the costs of device distribution and network security.
CHINA
* Tencent Holdings Ltd. will in 2018 become Nintendo Co. Ltd.'s partner to sell Switch video games in China, Huxiu reports. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. was also said to be in talks with Nintendo, but Tencent's dominance of China's gaming sector helped it clinch the deal.
* Alibaba entered a contract with Shanghai AtHub Co. Ltd. to expand its existing data center in China's Zhangbei county, Hebei province. The expansion will cost about 547 million yuan.
* Tom Wessner has left LeEco's electric car business Faraday Future, The Verge reports. Wessner was head of FF's supply chain management and was the second founding executive leaving the company.
* China's Ministry of Commerce has greenlit HP Inc.'s acquisition of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.'s printer business, with conditions including HP submitting a report every six months on prices and related data and HP not buying any stakes in other A4 printer manufacturers in China, Reuters reports.
INDIA
* Tech Mahindra Ltd., an unsecured operational creditor of Reliance Communications Ltd., has filed insolvency petitions against the company and its subsidiaries Reliance Telecom Ltd. and Reliance Big TV Ltd. to recover unpaid dues worth 82 million Indian rupees.
* Tower companies have started taking action against Reliance Communications for unpaid rentals, with most even refusing to honor service-level agreements that require them to maintain the towers for over 99.5% of the time, several people close to developments told The Economic Times (India).
* Idea Cellular Ltd. claims it recorded the highest 4G upload speed at 8.74 Mbps for September, citing data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's My Speed App, Press Trust of India reports.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
* Thailand's National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission appointed 66-year-old Gen. Sukit Khamasunthorn as its new chairman, the Bangkok Post reports.
* Singapore-based ride-hailing app company GrabTaxi Holdings Pte. Ltd. has stated that more than 3,000 taxi drivers from a local taxi operator company ComfortDelGro have signed up with Grab over the last month, newspaper The Straits Times reports. The high number of signups follows Grab's aggressive rental discounts of S$1,500 per month targeted at ComfortDelGro taxi drivers.
* Thailand's Ministry of Digital Economy and Society signed an Integrity Pact with state-owned CAT Telecom as part of a 5-billion-baht Association of Southeast Asian Nations Digital Hub cable project, Prachachat reports. The agreement is the second Integrity Pact signed by the new ministry since its creation in 2016.
AUSTRALIA
* The Australian Communications and Media Authority is holding a multiband residual lots auction in late November, ZDNet reports, citing an ACMA document published on Oct. 6. Spectrum across the 1800 MHz, 2 GHz, 2.3 GHz and 3.4 Ghz bands that provides mobile broadband coverage to about 38.5 million people in both regional and metropolitan areas will be sold.
* Vodafone NZ's partial listing, which the company has yet to confirm, could be pushed back until after Christmas and into the new year, sources told Stuff. A market source reportedly said it would most likely be done in April 2018 or May 2018.
* Australian broadcaster Ten Network Holdings Ltd.'s administrators KordaMentha could face a fresh legal hurdle upon the release of a key report by KPMG on the valuation of Ten's shares, The Australian reports. The report is believed to be released on Oct. 9, ahead of an Oct. 10 court deadline.
* French distributor Prime Entertainment signed a deal with New Zealand pay-TV channel Sky Arts for the entire run of the former's "Mythical Movie Theatres" series to be shown in New Zealand in December, Rapid TV News reports.
* FOXTEL's The History Channel in Australia and New Zealand, along with the British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC Scotland and Corus Entertainment Inc.'s HISTORY Canada, have commissioned a co-production of "100 Days to Victory," a docudrama that delves into the final 100 days of the first world war, C21Media reports. Australian production company Electric Pictures and Canada's Bristow Global Media Inc. are teaming up to co-produce the series.
FEATURED NEWS
MarketWeek: Analysts weigh Netflix price hike as media stocks climb: Netflix announced an increase in its monthly subscription price, and analysts weighed the significance of the move with a similar 2015 hike and recent subscriber and stock momentum.
Data Dispatch: 'Blade Runner' sequel dreaming of an electric debut: After "It," Warner Bros. is looking to drop another hit with "Blade Runner 2049."
FEATURED RESEARCH
Economics of TV & Film: Discovery Communications' original programming intensifies to a new high: The TV industry continues to witness a rise in programming expenses, original content hours and number of series per year. Content is king, and particularly original content as it has the potential to strengthen brands and attract viewers.
Wireless Investor: South Africa's telecom market faces regulatory, spectrum hiccups: Subscriptions using 4G jumped 78% in 2016, but overall use of the standard in South Africa is still fairly low due to scarce spectrum and a cumbersome regulatory environment.
Joji Sakurai, Myungran Ha, Frances Wang, Patrick Tibke and Ed Eduard 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.