TOP NEWS
* BlackRock Inc. held discussions with Tencent Holdings Ltd. over the past year to explore ways to make the asset manager's tools and models for investment portfolios broadly available to the Chinese market, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. Tencent is among a number of companies that BlackRock is in talks with as it evaluates potential partners in China, one of the people said.
* SK Telecom Co. Ltd. signed a deal with Rakuten Inc. to provide the Japanese e-commerce giant with 5G technologies such as network designs, optimized communication quality solutions, 5G antenna, and radio frequency transmission, Digital Daily reported, citing industry sources. Rakuten, which filed an application to become Japan's fourth telecom operator in 2018, plans to fully launch its mobile services in April 2020.
* Maxis Bhd. and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. struck an agreement for the provisioning of 5G network in Malaysia. As part of the deal, Huawei will supply the Malaysian telco with 4G/LTE and 5G radio equipment and services. The deal also allows Maxis to access insights, standards, products and solutions that will make 5G easier to adopt, operate and introduce new use cases in the country.
* Late-stage additions to Singapore's "fake news" law buy Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc. unit Google LLC and Twitter Inc. much needed time to adapt to the new rules, legal experts said. The city-state's Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act came into effect Oct. 2, despite opposition from social media companies. Since then, a new section has been added that grants "temporary exemptions" to internet subsidiaries.
JAPAN
* Jupiter Telecommunications Co. Ltd. acquired ZAQA, a local company that offers information technology support, for an undisclosed sum. Through the acquisition, J:COM seeks to strengthen its support system for the internet of things using ZAQA's after-service experience.
* NTT Data Intramart Corp., a unit of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., is partnering with Germany-based business process management software company Signavio GmbH in the area of process-mining tool. With the tie-up, the two companies seek to provide corporate clients with the digitization of business processes.
SOUTH KOREA
* KT Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with Korea Midland Power Co. Ltd. to set up 5G networks in its power plants and jointly develop smart plant technologies, Financial News reported. The two parties plan to apply augmented reality, artificial intelligence, smart surveillance camera and digital twin technologies based on 5G capabilities to plant operations.
* Ctrip.com International Ltd. completed the secondary offering of 36,000,000 American depositary shares by shareholder Baidu Inc. The offering included the exercise in full by the underwriters of their option to buy up to 4,695,648 ADSs to cover overallotment. The ADSs each represent 0.125 ordinary share of Ctrip.
* Chinese artificial intelligence startup SenseTime signed a partnership with China Tower Corp. Ltd. to install video surveillance systems to the tower company's 1.9 million sites, TechNode reported.
* Canada's border security agency admitted making an error in sharing Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou's phone passcodes with federal police, Reuters reported, citing a document filed as part of Meng's hearing in a British Columbia court. Meng, who is facing charges of wire fraud and breaking sanctions against Iran, was arrested in Canada in December 2018 at the request of the U.S. government.
INDIA AND SOUTH ASIA
* Paytm First Games secured US$20 million from investors including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s AGTech Holdings Ltd. and Paytm's parent company One97 Communications Ltd. According to Inc42, the Paytm Mobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd.-owned gaming platform plans to use the capital to scale its operations, invest in technology and further expand its user base through marketing activities.
* Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd.'s video streaming platform ZEE5 launched Infonomix, an offering designed to help brands benefit from precise targeting and segmentation capabilities to deliver measurable results, Television Post reported.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
* Hooq Digital Pte. Ltd. unveiled 19 new projects across Southeast Asia as part of the company's plan to deliver 100 originals by the second quarter of 2020, World Screen reported. The new projects include 12 series and seven movies, with the majority of the projects focused on Indonesia.
* Thailand's True Corp. signed a memorandum of understanding with Chiang Mai University to collaborate on 5G research and development, Manager reported. The partnership will focus on 5G use cases in healthcare, smart cities and agriculture.
* DiGi Telecommunications Sdn. Bhd. and Telekom Malaysia subsidiary TM GLOBAL agreed to collaborate on improving the internet coverage in Malaysia. The collaboration includes the optimization of TM GLOBAL's hotspot for Digi users and utilization of TM's inter-region submarine cable system to facilitate Digi's transmission requirement.
* Vietnam Posts & Telecommunications Group is looking to roll out 100,000 service points for mobile money services in 2020 after it secures government approval for a mobile money pilot program this year, KrASIA reported.
* Google, Temasek Holdings (Pte.) Ltd. and Bain & Co. have released their e-Conomy SEA report for 2019, highlighting some of the trends and potential of the Southeast Asian internet economy. Findings show that the region's internet economy crossed the US$100 billion mark and is on track to hit US$300 billion by 2025.
AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND
* Telstra Corp. Ltd. appointed Kim Krogh Andersen as group executive for product and technology. Andersen is currently senior vice president and head of global technology strategy at Telenor ASA and will commence his role at Telstra in January 2020.
* The Southern Cross NEXT transaction, which sees Telstra becoming a 25% shareholder of Southern Cross Cable Network, has been completed. As a result of the deal, Spark New Zealand Ltd.'s shareholding in Southern Cross has been reduced to approximately 40% from 50%.
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FEATURED NEWS
Software, telecom tower companies among Brexit M&A bright spots: Lack of a physical supply chain, a weak pound and ready yield plays could cushion mid-market software and telecom towers M&A from disruption as the U.K.'s deadline to leave the European Union approaches.
FEATURED RESEARCH
Wireless Investor: Architectural shift in 5G core needed to meet IoT demands: A recurring theme at this year's 5G Core Summit: Implementing 5G is not building a network for a single customer, but for a whole society.
Nozomi Ibayashi, Myungran Ha, Emily Lai, Kevin Osmond and Patrick Tibke 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.
