Excited newly-released iPhone X customers at a Mac City Apple Reseller Store in One Utama shopping mall on November 24, 2017 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Good morning. A tussle this week between prominent investors and Apple Inc. over iPhone use by young people comes amid a nascent re-evaluation of the smartphone’s social consequences within the industry that spawned it, writes WSJ's Tripp Mickle.
The smartphone has fueled much of Silicon Valley’s soaring profits over the past decade, enriching companies in sectors from social media to gaming to payments. But over the past year or so, a number of key industry figures, including executives at Apple and Facebook, have voiced concerns about the downsides of the technology’s ubiquity.
Those are the kinds of concerns spotlighted in a letter to Apple on Saturday from Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs, which control about $2 billion of Apple shares. The letter urged the tech giant to develop new software tools that would help parents control and limit phone use more easily, and to study the impact of overuse on mental health.
Apple late Monday issued a statement defending its parental controls and other protections for children who use its iPhones, noting that it started offering some of them as early as 2008. It said many of those tools can be found in the settings section of its devices.
The U.S. Senate Banking Committee is due to hold a hearing at 10 a.m. ET on combating money laundering and other forms of illicit finance.
Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business, introducing the Huawei Mate 10 smartphone in Munich, Germany in October.
Huawei boomed despite U.S. warnings of possible spy threat. Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. has positioned itself to dominate future global telecom networks by providing stiffening competition to incumbents Nokia Corp. and Ericsson AB. Now Washington is warning anew about the company’s alleged spy threat as U.S. telecoms embark on a $275 billion 5G network build-out.
Meanwhile, AT&T has walked away from a deal to sell smartphones made by Huawei. The Chinese company has been essentially shut out of the U.S. market after a 2012 Congressional reporter raised concerns about state-sponsored spying related to equipment made by Huawei.
Jeff Bezos net worth eclipses high set by Bill Gates. Jeff Bezos's net worth reached $105.1 billion on Monday on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as Amazon.com shares rallied. The Amazon founder's fortune is now above the high set by Microsoft Bill Gates in 1999, according to Bloomberg.
Two suits catch Google in middle of gender debate. Former Google female employees last week sued the company, a unit of Alphabet, for allegedly discriminating against women, while former male employees on Monday filed a suit for allegedly discriminating against conservative white men.
Wal-Mart de Mexico’s sales growth slowed in 2017. Sales at Wal-Mart de Mexico SA, Mexico’s biggest retailer, slowed in 2017 after two consecutive years of double-digit growth.
Viacom buys influencer marketing company Whosay. Viacom Inc., the owner of MTV and Nickelodeon, said it has agreed to acquire influencer marketing shop Whosay Inc., joining the long list of media companies investing in advertising services.
Tenet Healthcare increases job cuts. Tenet Healthcare Corp. isn’t waiting to replace its chief executive to revamp its business. Tenant unveiled plans to cut jobs and squeeze $250 million from its costs as one of the nation’s largest hospital companies responds to pressure from activist shareholders.
GoPro to cut 20% of workforce. GoPro Inc. is cutting more than one-fifth of its workforce and exiting the drone market as part of the action-camera company’s latest attempt to turn itself around.
Leucadia weighs sale of meat processor. Leucadia National Corp. is exploring a sale of part or all of its stake in its National Beef Packing Co. unit, one of the biggest U.S. meat-processing companies, people familiar with the matter said.
Broadcom CEO Hock Tan speaks at a November White House event, as U.S. President Donald Trump listens.
Chinese smartphone makers raise concerns about mega chip deal. Two large Chinese smartphone manufacturers said they are against the potential merger of chip giants Boardcom Ltd. and Qualcomm, fearing it could squeeze the mobile companies’ profit margins and benefit large global rivals to their detriment.
French prosecutor launches probe into Apple's planned obsolescence. A French prosecutor has launched a preliminary investigation of Apple Inc. over alleged deception and planned obsolescence of its products following a complaint by a consumer organization, according to Reuters.
Federal regulators rule against Trump administration on power plants. Federal energy regulators Monday rejected a Trump administration proposal aimed at shoring up struggling coal-fired and nuclear power plants.
Banks seek government help to track money laundering. Efforts to overhaul U.S. anti-money-laundering laws are gathering steam, as large banks, anticorruption groups and law-enforcement authorities coalesce around the idea of creating a national database of corporations and their true owners.
Shoppers accustomed to getting e-commerce orders in two days or less are adding to the pile at airport cargo terminals.
Air cargo shipments soar. Global airfreight traffic climbed almost 9% year-over-year in November as a jump in e-commerce orders supercharged the holiday rush, according to cargo data provider WorldACD. Rates for airfreight were up 17% annually that month.
Trump tells farmers he wants a better Nafta. President Donald Trump told a gathering of farmers Monday that he is seeking a better trade deal with Canada and Mexico that will benefit both the agricultural industry and manufacturing, but he didn’t reiterate previous warnings on withdrawing from the North American Trade Agreement.
Fed officials encourage reassessment of inflation target. Two Federal Reserve officials said Monday the U.S. central bank should consider changes in its inflation-targeting framework to create more ammunition to respond to future downturns.
U.S. consumer credit surged in November. U.S. consumer borrowing posted the largest monthly gain in 16 years, climbing by $27.95 billion in November from the prior month, buoyed by increased consumer confidence in the economy.