Miranda Wadham on 11/08/2015
ITV buys stake in Youtube’s Channel Mum
ITV announced that it has bought a minority stake in the YouTube network Channel Mum, as part of an effort to invest beyond TV production.
The channel was launched by Siobhan Freeguard, founder of parenting website Netmum, which provides a forum for mothers to share advice and experience. It aims to display the “honest face of parenting” in a series of videos by the most successful ‘mum vloggers’.
The channel has only 2,140 subscribers to date, but has already negotiated deals with Pampers and Panasonic. Simon Pitts, managing director of online, pay, interactive and technology at ITV told the Guardian:
“Siobhan Freegard is a hugely successful entrepreneur with a proven track record in digital business. She and her team at Channel Mum have a brilliant understanding of content, advertisers and mothers and how they can work together to produce genuinely appealing, authentic content.”
Robot Buddy is crowdfunding success
Buddy, the world’s first affordable companion robot has just completed an impressive crowdfunding campaign, raising $100,000 in just 24 hours.
After a month of the campaign, which closes tomorrow, Buddy has raised $395,325 through 644 people. The company operated a rewards-based model, with each investor pledging differing amounts of money in return for Buddy accessories, or a whole Buddy robot. Raising that sort of money in such a short space of time is no mean feat; so, what made it so successful?
Firstly, the expertise and passion behind the company is clear. CEO Rodolphe Hasselvander’s fascination with robots begun as a child. After watching movies like Star Wars, he became convinced that one day, we will all have our own R2D2 at home. He was an executive director at CRIIF, a robotics research company, for ten years before branching out and creating Buddy because it was something he strongly believed the world was lacking. He says:
“It’s been a long time dream of mine to bring a companion robot to mass market. Buddy is the manifestation of this dream: a friendly robot that helps with day to day life, but also boasts the latest in robotics technology”.
Hasselvander employed crowdfunding and tech PR company, Blazon PR, to be in charge of strategy. With so many crowdfunding platforms available, what made them choose Indiegogo?
According to Michael Raven, Blazon’s founder, they chose the platform for their recent success of technology campaigns:
“We’ve seen a steady rise in the funding of Indiegogo hardware technology on the platform, and I think moving forward, the platform caters for these types of campaigns more than Kickstarter or other platforms do.
For a crowdfunding campaign to be that so successful, marketing is key – especially utilizing free platforms on social media.
“As a PR company, we specialise in Growth Hacking and ensuring that each campaign is spread around the web on platforms like Reddit, Product Hunt and to communities such as Groups on Facebook. We also do a lot of work on Social Media, building accounts on Instagram and Twitter, ensuring that we’re having the correct conversations and interactions,” Raven said.
However, perhaps its success isn’t all that surprising; Buddy has plenty of organic reasons why it’s worth funding.
Buddy the robot can help children learn through interactive games and tests, connect to social networks and video calls, patrol your house whilst you’re away and alert you to any problems and even help care for the elderly, detecting unusual activity or falls and providing medication reminders.
Furthermore, its opensource platform aims to democratise robotics; it’s an app developers dream, and possibly he product’s real USP. App developers can build software to customise the Buddy experience with the Buddy Developer Edition.
Whilst having a future world full of robots seems like a sci-fi movie rather than reality, several companies are waking up to the usefulness of robotics in day-to-day life. The world’s first hotel staffed almost entirely by robots opened in Japan this summer; if it proves effective, many more could be set to follow. Buddy’s Indiegogo campaign ends this week – for more information on how to get involved, visit their campaign page here.
Miranda Wadham on 11/08/2015
Adecco reports under expectations
Adecco’s (VTX:ADEN) Q2 results were announced this morning, coming in under analyst’s expectations.
The company reported a net profit of 177 million euros, compared to the expected 182 million.
However, Adecco believe they will meet their full year goal of boosting its earnings before interest, taxes and amortisation (EBITA) margin above 5.5 percent.
In a statement, Cheif Executive Patrick De Maeseneire said:
“We are committed to achieving our EBITA margin target of above 5.5 percent in 2015, which is dependent on an acceleration of revenue growth in the second half of the year. Given the trends in our business and the current economic outlook, and helped by an easier comparison base, we continue to expect such pick-up.”.
Adecco is one of the biggest providers of temporary and permanent staffing. The company is currently trading down 2.37% on the news.
Success in Asia boosts Prudential results
Financial services group Prudential (LON:PRU) announced its half year results today, disclosing a total pre-tax income rise of 32 per cent to £1.9 billion.
Operating profits jumped to £1.9 billion pounds, beating an average forecast of £1.74 billion from analysts. Total new business profit increased by 12 percent to 1.2 billion pounds.
The figures were boosted by surprise success in Asia, where pre-tax profits gained 20 per cent at actual exchange rates to £632 million.
This was the first set of Prudential results under new chief executive Mike Wells. In a statement, the company said:
“While in some markets we are seeing local short-term challenges, particularly in Indonesia where the macro-economic outlook remains fragile, our pan-Asian platform across 12 life markets in the region and significant diversification by country, product and channel enables the delivery of a strong regional performance.”
Greek deal almost closed
Greek shares surged this morning as it was confirmed that Greece has agreed a bailout deal with its creditors.
Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos confirmed only “two or three small issues” were pending. The banking index rose 6 percent on the news.
Greek officials have been locked in a 23-hour session with its creditors since Monday morning. The country’s first 3 nillion euro repayment is due on the 20th August, and Tsipras hopes to pass the deal through Parliament by the weekend.
A deal is needed to ensure Greece stays in the Euro, and is rumoured at around 86 billion euros.
Google reveals surprise with Alphabet parent company
Google has created a parent company, Alphabet, in a surprise restructuring announced by Google founder Larry Page today.
Seperate divisions such as Youtube and Android will be retained by Google, but the new drone business and smart-home arm Nest will come under Alphabet. The move is an attempt to clarify the separate parts of what has become a complex and diverse business, and has been cheered by investors.
The surprise news sent shares of Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) up by 5% in pre market trading, however share price has now dropped -0.25%.
Google founder Larry Page said in a blog post:
“This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google.
“Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountableThe whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands.”
Page will become chief executive of Alphabet, with senior vice president Sundar Pichai becoming CEO of Google.
China: land reclamation has “already stopped”
Ongoing land reclamation in the South China sea has been halted, according to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
The Chinese have been fortifying reefs and constructing military bases in the ocean over the past few months, provoking reactions from other countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia who believe the territory belongs to them.
Beijing confirmed yesterday that land reclamation had “alrady stopped” and that ASEAN and China wished to resolve the issue through dialogue. China requesting that the US allow the countries to sort the issue amongst themselves.
According to the United States, China has reclaimed more than 1,200 hectares of territory over the past 18 months. Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan together claimed only 100 acres in the last 45 years.
Whilst China are saying the motive is democratic, economic problems suggest that they are freeing up time to divert their issues to more pressing problems at home.
China have just announced a devaluation of the national currency, which is the last in a series of attempts over the last few months to prop up the volatile economy.
China’s surprise Yuan devaluation sees commodity currencies dive
The Aussie dollar fell almost 2 per cent against the USD after China’s surprise devaluation of the Yuan. Prior to the announcement the AUD/USD was trading at 0.7440, a level it hadn’t traded at since the 20th July this year.
As the devaluation was announced strong selling saw the AUD/USD pair trade at a low of 0.73.
China’s appetite for iron ore and coal drove a decade long mining boom in Australia with companies investing almost A$400bn on projects between 2003 – 2012. The continued Chinese slowdown has stifled demand for natural resources seeing commodity markets and related currencies nose dive.
The New Zealand dollar sold off in a similar fashion to the Aussie. China was New Zealand’s top export market in the June quarter with sales worth $2.2 billion in the year to June, however New Zealand’s exports to China are down almost 30% in the year to June and with the weaker Yuan making imports more expensive it looks to be a trend set to continue. The NZD/USD was trading at 0.6630 prior to the announcement crashing to a low of 0.6535 NZD to the USD dollar.
China devalues yuan, hits FTSE
The Chinese central bank has devalued the yuan by almost 2%, its lowest rate against the dollar in almost three years.
The bank said the move was a “one-off depreciation” of 1.9%, which triggered the biggest one-day loss in 20 years.
The move is the latest in a string of changes by the Chinese authorities to stimulate the volatile stock market. Over the weekend, China reported exports figures at a six year low, falling 8.3% in July, far worse than expected.
The midpoint for the yuan is now set at 6.2298 to $1, up from 6.1162 yuan on Monday. The People’s Bank of China usually manages the rate through this midpoint, which is has previously been determined by themselves. From now on the midpoint will be calculated by overnight market developments in order to make it more market based.
The move has hit the FTSE 100 this morning, which was down 0.6% before opening.
Burberry (LON:BRBY) was the top faller in the wake of the Chinese news, falling 2.2%. The devaluation will affect the cost of imports, from which the company heavily relies.
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