1.MORGAN STANLEY:-Large tie-ups between publicly listed companies will be off the table in 2022, as a crackdown by the Biden administration makes securing regulatory sign-off for combinations increasingly difficult, senior dealmakers told the Reuters Next conference.
Mergers and acquisitions have been happening at record pace this year, as companies seek to reshape themselves as they emerge from the pandemic by using cheap debt and bumper stock prices to pursue transformative combinations.
2.APPLE:-Apple Inc has told its parts suppliers that demand for the iPhone 13 lineup has slowed, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter, signaling that some consumers have decided against trying to get the hard-to-find item.
The company had earlier cut production of iPhone 13 by as many as 10 million units due to a global chip shortage, but now it has informed vendors that those orders may not materialize, the report said.
Apple and some of its suppliers 3M Co, Broadcom Inc and Advanced Micro Devices Inc did not immediately respond to requests for comments from Reuters.
A global chip crunch, initially due to high demand for smartphones and personal gadgets during the coronavirus pandemic, has affected the auto industry and disrupted production at companies ranging from Apple to GM.
3.INSTAGRAM:-Instagram head Adam Mosseri will testify on Dec. 8 at a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing on “protecting kids online,” the panel said on Wednesday.
“This hearing will address what Instagram knows about its impacts on young users, its commitments to reform, and potential legislative solutions,” the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection, product safety and data security said.
4.QUALCOMM: Qualcomm Inc on Wednesday released a new chip designed for gaming-specific handheld devices offering 5G connectivity, a potential new mobile platform for video gamers offering more flexibility to play streaming games on the go.
The San Diego-based firm said it has partnered with gaming hardware company Razer Inc to create an initial test device for game makers.
Qualcomm is the world’s biggest supplier of chips for smartphones, which have become a key platform for video games, which in turn are one of the biggest revenue generators in mobile app stores.
With its “G3x Gen 1” chip announced on Wednesday, Qualcomm envisions handheld devices that have a touch screen similar to a smartphone, but also physical controls like a gaming console controller and much longer battery life while playing graphics-intensive games.
The most popular similar device on today’s market is the Nintendo Co Ltd Switch , but that device does not feature cellular data connectivity, instead relying on a WiFi connection.
Qualcomm powered devices would have 5G connectivity to stream games directly from cloud gaming providers like Microsoft Corp when WiFi isn’t available. The devices would also have bigger batteries to take advantage of Qualcomm’s graphics processing capabilities, which often aren’t fully exploited on phones because it would hurt battery life.
5.FACEBOOK :Meta Platforms Inc S Facebook asked a U.S. court on Wednesday to dismiss and not allow the refiling of an antitrust lawsuit by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission which urges a court to demand that the company sell two big subsidiaries.
In its court filing, Facebook argued that the FTC had “no plausible factual support” for its claim that the company has the market clout to push up prices in the social network market. The social media giant also said the FTC failed to “plausibly establish” that Facebook acted illegally to protect a monopoly.
Facebook also pressed again for FTC Chair Lina Khan to be recused from the matter, arguing that her participation in a vote to approve the lawsuit was improper because of her criticism of the company before she joined the agency.
The FTC’s high-profile case against Facebook represents one of the biggest challenges the government has brought against a tech company in decades, and is being closely watched as Washington aims to tackle Big Tech’s extensive market power.
