VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Jakarta. South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc will wind down its loss-making mobile division after failing to find a buyer, a move that is set to make it the first major smartphone brand to completely withdraw from the market.

Its decision to pull out will leave its 10% share in North America, where it is the No. 3 brand, to be gobbled up by Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc with its domestic rival expected to have the edge.

“In the United States, LG has targeted mid-priced - if not ultra-low - models and that means Samsung, which has more mid-priced product lines than Apple, will be better able to attract LG users,” said Ko Eui-young, an analyst at Hi Investment & Securities.

LG’s smartphone division has logged nearly six years of losses totalling some $4.5 billion. Dropping out of the fiercely competitive sector would allow LG to focus on growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices and smart homes, it said in a statement.

In better times, LG was early to market with a number of cell phone innovations including ultra-wide angle cameras and at its peak in 2013, it was the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer behind Samsung and Apple.

But later, its flagship models suffered from both software and hardware mishaps which combined with slower software updates saw the brand steadily slip in favour. Analysts have also criticised the company for lack of expertise in marketing compared to Chinese rivals.

While other well-known mobile brands such as Nokia, HTC and Blackberry have also fallen from lofty heights, they have yet to disappear completely.

LG’s current global share is only about 2%. It shipped 23 million phones last year which compares with 256 million for Samsung, according to research provider Counterpoint.

In addition to North America, it does have a sizeable presence in Latin America, where it ranks as the No. 5 brand.

While rival Chinese brands such as Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi do not have much of a presence in the United States, in part due to frosty bilateral relations, their and Samsung’s low to mid-range product offerings are set to benefit from LG’s absence in Latin America, analysts said.

LG’s smartphone division, the smallest of its five divisions accounting for about 7% of revenue, is expected to be wound down by July 31.

In South Korea, the division’s employees will be moved to other LG Electronics businesses and affiliates, while elsewhere decisions on employment will be made at the local level.

Analysts said they were told in a conference call that LG plans to retain its 4G and 5G core technology patents as well as core R&D personnel, and will continue to develop communication technologies for 6G. It has yet to decide whether to license out such intellectual property in the future, they added.

LG will provide service support and software updates for customers of existing mobile products for a period of time which will vary by region, it added.

Talks to sell part of the business to Vietnam’s Vingroup fell through due to differences about terms, sources with knowledge of the matter have said.

LG Elec shares have risen about 7% since a January announcement that it was considering all options for the business. (Reuters)

Jakarta. Malaysia’s Court of Appeal on Monday began hearing a bid by former Prime Minister Najib Razak to set aside his conviction on corruption charges in a case linked to a multi-billion dollar scandal at state fund 1MDB.

Najib, who was voted out in a historic 2018 election, faces several trials over allegations that $4.5 billion was stolen from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state fund he co-founded in 2009. He has plead not guilty to all charges.

Last year, Najib was sentenced to 12 years in jail and a $50 million fine after being found guilty of criminal breach of trust, abuse of power and money laundering for illegally receiving about $10 million from SRC International, a former 1MDB unit.

The sentences were stayed pending an appeal.

Najib’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, in his opening remarks on Monday, argued that the trial judge had erred by including additional matters in his final ruling which had not originally been part of the case against the former premier.

“We will be contending that this was highly improper and in fact, prejudicial towards our client,” Muhammad Shafee said.

Muhammad Shafee had earlier requested for the appeal to be adjourned for another month, saying he needed more time to obtain documents relevant to Najib’s defence from the United States and Singapore. The court, however, rejected the request.

The court has fixed 12 days between April 5 and 22 to hear the appeal. If Najib loses the bid, he can still appeal at the Federal Court, Malaysia’s highest tribunal.

Prosecutors have said more than $1 billion of 1MDB funds made its way into Najib’s personal accounts, over which he faces a total of 42 criminal charges.

At least six countries have opened investigations into 1MDB, in a globe-spanning scandal that has implicated high-level officials and major financial institutions.

In recent months, Malaysia has recovered more than $3 billion from U.S. bank Goldman Sachs, audit firm Deloitte, and Malaysian banking group AmBank in separate deals to settle claims linked to 1MDB probes. (Reuters)

Jakarta. In Thailand, it’s the all-important tourism sector that has jumped to the head of the COVID-19 vaccination line, with the country’s most popular resort island embarking on a mass inoculation programme two months ahead of the rest of the country.

The island of Phuket aims to deliver shots to at least 460,000 people - most of its population - as it gears up for July 1, when vaccinated overseas visitors will no longer be required to quarantine.

Phuket also has its own international airport and tourists would be able to roam the island freely without posing any coronavirus risk to the rest of Thailand’s population.

“If we can build immunity for 70-80% of the population on the island, we can receive foreign tourists who have been vaccinated without the need for quarantine,” Phuket’s Vice Governor Piyapong Choowong told Reuters.

While medical workers, members of the cabinet and the elderly were the first to be vaccinated, Thailand’s decision to prioritise Phuket over other parts of the country underscores the central role of tourism to the economy.

Spending by foreign tourists accounted for 11-12% of GDP pre-pandemic and the sector has been devastated by the virus with 1.45 million jobs lost since last year.

Just 6.7 million foreign tourists visited Thailand in 2020, spending some $11 billion. That compares with nearly 40 million in 2019, when they spent $61 billion.

The government wants to see at least 100,000 tourists come to Phuket in the third quarter. It also hopes that as vaccinations worldwide progress it will see a spike in demand in the fourth quarter and that nationwide some 6.5 million visitors will have spent 350 billion baht ($11 billion) by the end of the year.

“It’s a challenge. But that will contribute to GDP to some extent,” said Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Yuthasak Supasorn.

“We don’t expect tourists will come in like a broken dam but we hope to have quality visitors with high spending.”

Visitors from Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the United States are expected to return first, Yuthasak said.

Strict 14-day quarantine requirements for overseas visitors have helped Thailand limit coronavirus infections to around 29,100 cases and 95 deaths but have proven to be too great a hurdle for most tourists.

Programmes to attract long-term tourists who test negative for the coronavirus have largely flopped, even with creative measures such as quarantine at golf resorts.

Songklod Wongchai, an analyst at Finansia Syrus, believes Thailand could see a quick rebound in tourism, citing the example of the Maldives which has seen hotel occupancy rates bounce back to 70-80% despite cases of the virus.

“Pent-up demand may come back faster than expected. I think the Land of Smiles will start smiling again,” he said. (Reuters)

Jakarta. India reported a record rise in COVID-19 infections on Monday, becoming the second country after the United States to post more than 100,000 new cases in a day, as politicians stage massive election rallies raising fears of further spreading the virus.

Hospitals in the worst affected state, Maharashtra, are being overrun by patients. India’s richest state, home to its commercial capital Mumbai and numerous industries, reported a record 57,074 new cases overnight.

The country’s daily infections have risen about 12 fold since hitting a multi-month low in early February, when authorities eased most restrictions and people largely stopped wearing masks and following social distancing.

With 103,558 new infections, India has now reported 12.6 million cases, the highest after the United States and Brazil, data from the health ministry showed. Deaths jumped by 478, still one of the lowest fatality rates in the world, raising the total to 165,101.

India has recorded the most number of infections in the past week anywhere in the world. More infectious variants of the virus may have played a role in the second surge, some epidemiologists say.

“The new variant, or variants of concern, probably explains a lot of it, rather than simplistic explanation of behaviour,” said Rajib Dasgupta, head of the Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health in New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

India has found hundreds of cases of the virus variants first detected in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.

Subhash Salunke, a former WHO official who advises Maharashtra on its COVID-19 strategy, said cases in the state would continue to rise for another couple of weeks. He said a way out was vaccinating all adults in its hardest-hit cities such as Mumbai, Pune and Nashik.

“If we start doing this, by the end of April we will see a downward trend,” he said. (Reuters)