The month of July has been intense specifically for the on-going political and governmental influences within the tech world (when has it ever not been so?). You may have heard that the European Union fined Google $5.1 billion for abusing its power in the mobile phone market. Also, it’s “nail-biting” situation for China’s second largest telecommunication company as Trump administration lets ZTE to partially operate until August. Guess we’ll find out whether their trade ban will be lifted or not soon but the prospects of winning the trust of their clients back seem highly unlikely as other competing telcos are already sweeping the opportunities in juncture.
Talking about China, after 10 long years of effort in courting the world’s second-largest economy, Facebook finally gained an official status in China, at least temporarily. Who knows maybe this move will boost their recent 20 percent stock drop that caused them $120 billion in value. Anything and everything is truly possible in the tech world and if you’ve not gotten the hidden clue from the highlights above, compliance is like the Chemical X added to the sugar, spice, and everything nice in the concoction for success in the tech world ( and not accidental ;)).
On a personal note, we’re happy to share that our company has completed our state-to-state workshop tour for our collaboration with Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) for this year LevelUp@Schools, an initiative to nurture future innovators by fostering game development skill set among students in Malaysia.
Want to learn more about what’s happening in the Industry? Check out the news roundup below:
Mobile:
- Mobile World Live: Nokia secured a massive 5g deal with T-mobile US
- Reuters: Australia prepares to ban Huawei from 5g
- Venture beat: Whatsapp rolls out group calls
Payments:
- TechCrunch: Apple Pay to account for 1 in 2 contactless mobile wallet users by 2020
- Venture beat: ICOHub and Crunchbase partner to improve ICO transparency
- Telecom Asia: Blockchain in telecoms market to hit nearly $1b by 2023
Programmatic:
- Digiday: BuzzFeed ditches native, goes all programmatic with BuzzFeed News
- The drum: Programmatic advertising to drive digital OOH market to exceed more than $5bn by 2022
- Adage: Snapchat opens a private marketplace for brands to buy ads
Gaming:
- Venture Beat: Nintendo Switch has sold 19.7 million consoles, 87 million games to date
- South China Morning Post: Tencent’s WeGame platform in the push to go global, heating up a rivalry with PC gaming site Steam
- Gamesindustrybiz: Dragon Ball Z mobile title reaches an estimated $1 billion revenue
