Samsung posted a 95% drop in profits for the second quarter of the year 2023. This is the second time in a row that the company has seen its profits drop over 90%. The South Korean giant’s operating profit during the quarter was KRW 0.67 trillion ($523.5 million), down from KRW 14.12 trillion ($11.06 billion) during the same period last year. Samsung said that the huge drop is the result of the continuing decline in smartphone shipments. “Sales decreased sequentially for the MX Business as the effect of the Galaxy S23 launch from Q1 faded. Mass market recovery was also delayed due to the continued economic downturn, affecting Q2 sales. Nevertheless, the Galaxy S23 series was able to achieve higher results than its predecessor in the first half, in terms of both volume and value,” the company said in a statement.But why it is not Samsung’s ‘problem’ alone Samsung’s smartphone business has been struggling for the past few months. However, the fall in the company’s smartphone shipments are not alone to be blamed for the drastic fall in profits. As much of the impact that the declining smartphone market is having on Samsung is not only from the company’s own Galaxy devices directly. Samsung Electronics also supplies a large part of the memory and storage for other smartphone makers. The company is also one of the world’s largest suppliers of displays including that for Apple through Samsung Display. So the general fall in smartphone shipments across brands has also impacted Samsung. The smartphone market on a whole continues to fall. Latest reports from research companies including IDC, Counterpoint Research and Strategy Analytics have pointed to the degrowth in the smartphone market. Silver Lining in sightOn a positive note, the reports also signal that the worst may be over for the segment. Global demand is expected to gradually recover in the second half of the year which should lead to an improvement in earnings driven by the component business. Reports suggest bounce back especially in the premium segment.Samsung on its part sees the latest foldable smartphones, Galaxy Z Flip5 and Galaxy Z Fold5 — helping boost sales. “The MX Business will focus on the newly launched Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5 series — which feature refined and differentiated user experiences – further fortifying its leadership in the global foldable smartphone market,” said the company in its earnings release.

Connect with Dr. Anil Gupta (Guru):- https://www.linkedin.com/in/startupmentor/ 🎉 Welcome to CROSSROADTIMES – Your Gateway to Success and Inspiration! 🌟 🎙️ Welcome to “Pivot Point”! Our guest today is Dr. Anil Gupta, the renowned business guru – a mentor, economist, and TEDx speaker. Joining us is host Mr. Kapil Kumar, a serial entrepreneur, growth expert, and investor. In this episode, we explore how India’s economy and government support entrepreneurs, and we dive into the world of Hindu entrepreneurship. Dr. Gupta’s new venture, “Connect Venture,” is also on the spotlight, where he helps young and existing business owners launch globally. Timecodes:- 00:00 Intro. 00:48 Why People Call You Business Guru. 01:56 Starting of Hindu Entrepreneurship. 06:16 How Hindu Dharam is Supporting Entrepreneurship. 10:12 Models of Entrepreneurship. 15:10 How Easy or Tough Entrepreneurship Is? 23:25 Which type of People Can Reach up to Execution. 27:55 How Indian Economy is Supporting Small Entrepreneurs. 30:55 How Anil Gupta is Helping Entrepreneurs for Global Launch. 33:00 Services of Connect Ventures. 37:03 What if I don’t fulfill Global compliances. 39:00 How to Connect With You. #Kapilkk #entrepreneurship #businesstalks About Crossroadtimes :- We believe in empowering you with the knowledge and strategies to unleash your full potential. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a go-getter looking for inspiration, or an industry expert seeking valuable tips, this channel is your ultimate resource. 🎥 Each video is carefully crafted to provide you with actionable advice, thought-provoking discussions, and real-life experiences that will elevate your business and personal life. 🔔 Hit that subscribe button and ring the notification bell so you never miss a moment of our content. Join our vibrant community of like-minded individuals and be part of a journey that leads to success, fulfillment, and continuous growth. 🌟 Let’s thrive together, overcome challenges, and celebrate achievements as we navigate the path to greatness. Are you ready to embrace the limitless possibilities? Subscribe now #CROSSROADTIMES and let’s unlock your potential together! 🚀✨ ——————————————————————————— ✅ Follow Crossroad Times Social media Handles :- Facebook :- @crossroadtimes https://www.facebook.com/crossroadtimes Instagram :- @crossroadtimes https://www.instagram.com/crossroadtimes/ Linked.in :- @crossroadtimes https://www.linkedin.com/company/crossroadtimes/ Twitter :- @crossroadtimes Tweets by CrossRoadTimes 🎉 Calling all Achievers and Visionaries! 🌟 If you have a remarkable success story to share, an inspiring journey that the world needs to hear, or valuable insights that can ignite growth, we want to hear from you! 📩 Contact our passionate podcast team at crossroadtimes@gmail.com and let’s create magic together! 🎙️ Whether you’re an accomplished entrepreneur, an industry trailblazer, or someone who’s overcome significant challenges, we’re eager to showcase your achievements and inspire our global audience. More :- WWW.CROSSROADTIMES.COM source

Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance (ABSLI) becomes the first private life insurance company to join Metaverse in India. The company has launched a 3D virtual lounge, InsureVerseto become the first life insurance company to enter Metaverse. With this platform, the company will offer its customers a multisensory experience by enabling them to interact with Life Insurance experts & agents.The launch of InsureVerse will empower the company to improve ‘customer servicing’. The ability to meet with the customer servicing representatives in Metaverse will enable ABSLI’s customers to cut through the inconvenience of visiting a physical branch. ABSLI InsureVerse: Availability and how to set upIn the InsureVerse experience, users can sign up with their email IDs. Further, the platform provides security features for the host/moderator for an improved experience and will also provide several features for interactions such as the ability to sit down on a seat, raise hands for doubts/questions, like and dislike reactions, sticky notes, opening up portals to digital worlds and the ability to screen share. Users will have the choice to select from the high or low bandwidth of Metaverse Space and can access the platform through a laptop, desktop, mobile (Android and iOS) and Oculus headset. Moreover, users can access InsureVerse on Metaverse through its website and create their digital avatars by taking selfies or uploading photos. ABSLI InsureVerse: Features and benefitsVirtual Lounges: ABSLI has introduced interactive displays and digital walls in the virtual space, providing customers with an immersive showcase of their life insurance solutions. Digital Avatars: Customers can create their digital avatars, enhancing engagement as they interact with Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance representatives in a more personalised manner.Financial Education: The unique physical branch experience in InsureVerse fosters financial education, particularly among young customers, facilitating early exposure to crucial financial concepts.Convenient Access: In addition to the virtual lounge, customers can access services through various digital self-service channels like WhatsApp Bot and the Web portal, ensuring a seamless experience.Personalised Assistance: Customers can also explore financial products and schemes at their convenience, receiving personalised advice from representatives in a secure and interactive environment.ABSLI’s 3D virtual lounge InsureVerse will even consist of digital displays with product videos & interactive access to products and schemes creatives for different product segments. The company has introduced its recently launched ABSLI Nishchit Ayush Plan on the virtual platform.

While Instagram’s Threads logged a steep decline in active users after it registered 100 million sign-ups in a week, Twitter has recorded an increase in monthly users. Company owner Elon Musk said that monthly users of the social media platform, which is now called X, reached a “new high.” Musk shared a graph that showed the latest count as over 541 million. “X monthly users reach a new high in 2023,” he tweeted, adding that these numbers are after removal of a vast number of bots. Social media companies usually report their ‘active’ monthly users but Musk’s data was missing the (important?) word.Twitter reported that it had 229 million monthly active users in May 2022 and in November last year, Musk claimed that X had 259.4 million daily active users.Threads under ‘threat’?The development comes at a time when its direct competitor Threads is looking to find ways to retain its users. A report claimed that Threads registered a decline and daily active users dropped from 49 million to 23.6 million in about two weeks after it was launched.Earlier this week, a separate report claimed that Threads was working on “retention-driving hooks”, which are necessarily new features that may help the platform retain users. According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the drop-off in active users count was “normal” and he expects retention to grow as the company adds more features to the app. “Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We’re not there yet,” he said. ‘X’ comes to iPhonesThe monthly users count came as Twitter is undergoing a rebranding on smartphones. Twitter became X on the web, then the change came to Android and now iPhones users are seeing the blue bird logo changing to ‘X’. However, the name of the app on the App Store remains ‘Twitter’.It is pointed out that Apple makes it mandatory for apps to have at least two letters in their names, therefore, the name of the app is not changed on the App Store..

Elon Musk-owned micro-blogging platform Twitter (which was recently rebranded to X) has officially rolled out the ads revenue sharing feature. This feature will allow users to share revenue from verified users’ impressions of ads displayed in replies to the content they post on X. The company claims that this feature will help people “earn a living directly on X.” With this feature, creators on the social media platform will be able to set up ads revenue sharing and creator subscriptions independently. This feature will be available globally (including India) and eligible creators will be able to apply for the payout. Eligibility criteriaTo be eligible for ads revenue sharing creators need to be subscribed to Twitter Blue or be a part of Verified Organizations. Also, eligible creators need to have at least 15 million impressions on their cumulative posts within the last 3 months. Apart from this, the creator also needs to have at least 500 followers. Eligible users who want to claim the payment need to have a Stripe account. Twitter uses the Stripe platform to process its payments. Moreover, eligible users also need to comply with the company’s ads revenue share terms. These terms include creator monetisation standards and the X rules. Users will be able to apply for both creator subscriptions and ad revenue sharing by accessing the monetisation option in settings. However, if users are found to breach the ads revenue share terms they will be excluded from the program. How to claim paymentFirst, enter the Monetisation section of the app. This option will be available in the side menu of the iOS or Android app while on the overflow menu on the web version. After clicking the “Join and setup payouts” users will be redirected to Twitter’s payment processor, Stripe. Here users have to set up an account to receive their share. Users have to access their Stripe accounts to transfer funds to their external bank account. Users will receive payouts at regular intervals after opting in. Payments can be initiated once users have generated more than $50. The company has also mentioned that eligible creators who have set up their payout details will be able to receive a payment the week of July 31 if they meet the criteria and their payout amount exceeds the minimum threshold of $50.

Two US lawmakers who head a committee focused on China urged the Biden administration to tighten export restrictions on artificial intelligence chips in the wake of industry lobbying to leave the rules unchanged. Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican and chair of the House of Representatives select committee on China, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat and ranking member of the committee, in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo called to “further strengthen” a sweeping set of export control rules implemented last October that cut off China’s access to top AI chips made by US firms such as Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel. The letter urges US officials to take an even stricter approach than one Reuters reported last month that they are considering.The October 2022 rules impose two performance caps on exporting AI chips to China – one on how fast the chips can talk to one another, and the second on the chips’ processing speeds.After the rules took effect, Nvidia created special chips for China with lower interconnect speeds. Intel this month also said it has created an AI chip that can be sold in China.But Nvidia’s chips still have high enough processing speeds to be useful in creating AI systems, and Reuters reported in May that the US export controls have done little to slow the progress of China’s AI sector.Last month, Reuters reported that US officials were considering tightening the rules by focusing on processing speeds alone, which could affect Nvidia’s chips. Nvidia at the time said that restricting sales of its AI chips to China “would result in a permanent loss of opportunities for the U.S. industry.”The potential tightening of the rules set off a flurry of lobbying activity, with the chief executives of Nvidia, Intel and Qualcomm traveling to Washington last week to meet with administration officials to discuss China policy. The same day as the visit, the Semiconductor Industry Association, a US-based industry group, urged the Biden administration to allow the “the industry to have continued access to the China market, the world’s largest commercial market for commodity semiconductors.” Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi urged an even tighter approach than the one Reuters previously reported officials are considering. The lawmakers’ letter recommended keeping a speed limit on how fast chips can talk to one another and said it “should be lowered sufficiently to prevent clever engineering that bypasses the regulations.”The lawmakers also urged administration officials to “closely consider” how to cut off Chinese firms’ access to advanced computing chips in the cloud, where major US firms such as Amazon.com, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google offer the chips for rent as part of their cloud computing services.“We urge you to even further strengthen the October 7, 2022, rules so that advanced US technology and expertise related to advanced computing and semiconductors are not used against the United States,” Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi wrote.

Google, Microsoft and Facebook parent Metaannounced their quarterly results recently. And all of them are back in black, with the worst seem to be behind them. The shares of these companies too have bounced back. It’s no different for many other technology companies. Technology companies in the US are apparently talking less about recession this earnings season, signaling that they are increasingly optimistic about a soft economic landing.The recession chatter has been replaced by that of artificial intelligence. According to a Bloomberg analysis, with nearly half of the Nasdaq 100 firms having reported, executives are less frequently using words like headwinds, inflation, and recession in calls with analysts and investors. This is seen as a sharp reversal from last year, when such concerns drove steep equity declines.AI takes winds off “recession” Executives are said to be scrambling to elaborate on how they plan to monetize new AI products and services — be it up-selling software or manufacturing hardware to power servers and cloud infrastructures. “Collectively, this is a positive signal with respect to business prospects and profitability, a reference to how the economy remains reasonably resilient,” Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott, told Bloomberg.According to the report, references to recession and related terms like economic slowdown are down more than 70% this quarter in earnings calls compared to a year ago. The usage is poised to decline further, as per the data compiled by Bloomberg based on the companies that have reported this season. No more “headwinds” tooIncidentally, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell too said earlier this week that the US central bank’s staff economists are no longer forecasting a recession.Also, with inflation cooling in the US, companies have started using the term fewer times on calls. Even references to the word “headwinds”, which reportedly saw 70 mentions in the fourth quarter, slipped to 31. The US Fed since early last year has engaged in one of the most aggressive tightening campaigns since the 1980s in an effort to curb inflation. The inflation in the US touched a 40-year high in the year 2022. June’s consumer-price report showed an inflation rate reducing.

Apple supplier Foxconn‘s top executive has praised the chip ecosystem of India. According to a report by PTI, the Taiwan-based company’s chairman, Young Liu said that the ecosystem for semiconductor chips in India is for the “very brave”. During the second edition of SemiconIndia, Liu expressed optimism about the country’s semiconductor roadmap. “The ecosystem for chips in India is for the very brave. Every experience only positions companies stronger going forward,”Liu said while addressing the event. He also noted that Taiwan will be the “most trusted and reliable partner” for India. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi once mentioned to me that IT stands for India and Taiwan. Honourable Prime Minister, Taiwan is and will be, your most trusted and reliable partner. Let’s do this together!” he added.Apart from this, Liu also discussed Taiwan’s “buffalo spirit” and how India can apply the same method to develop its semiconductor ecosystem. “India has said its government has a high say-do ratio. This kind of trust is important because India’s semiconductor development is just starting,” he noted. Liu also mentioned that a workforce with varying expertise is also needed to work and ease the challenges together.Foxconn-Vedanta chip-making venture ‘failed’, still there’s hopeFoxconn backed out from a $19.5 billion semiconductor joint venture with home-grown Vedanta earlier this month. The venture failed as it struggled to rope in a technology partner.In February 2022, a joint venture between these two companies was signed to manufacture chips that are used in several products starting from mobile phones to cars. Later on, the JV also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat government. The company promised to invest Rs 1,54,000 crore to set up a semiconductor plant in the state. This venture could’ve given India its first semiconductor manufacturing facility. In June, US-based memory maker Micron Technology also announced that it will become India’s first semiconductor assembly. However, there is some hope left as Foxconn is still in the game. Post the failure of the venture, the company confirmed that it has been keeping a lookout for apt partners.In a statement, the company said: “Foxconn is working toward submitting an application related to Modified Programme for Semiconductors and Display Fab Ecosystem. We have been actively reviewing the landscape for optimal partners.”

Apollo APL charts an ambitious course towards accelerated growth with a 2.86 lakh tons capacity expansion plan. The company eyes new greenfield plants in key regions, backed by a hefty INR 500 crore capex funded through equity infusion and internal cash flows. Their aggressive pricing strategy aims to gain market share while maintaining a debt-free stance.

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, earlier this year, launched their new venture Artifact — a news app that delivers a personalised feed powered by artificial intelligence (AI). The app is now adding an AI-powered text-to-speech feature that will read you news articles in celebrities’ voices. According to a report by The Verge, the company is offering this feature as part of a partnership with Speechify – which is a mobile and desktop app that reads text aloud using a computer-generated text-to-speech voice. Artifact will read aloud news in the voice of Snoop Dogg and Gwyneth Paltrow, who are among the voices that can read you the news. According to Robby Stein, Artifact’s head of product, there are more than 30 English voices available. How to enable text-to-speech playerUsers of the app will be able to turn on the text-to-speech player by tapping on a “play” icon at the bottom bar while reading an article. The player will then let them choose things like reading speed (up to 4.5x!) and which voice to hear. The report said that the audio will keep playing in the background as the user explores other parts of Artifact or if they leave the app. The text-to-speech feature is initially rolling out to Apple iOS and will come to Android in the next few days. How Artifact delivers newsArtifact brings news from a curated list of publishers, including The New York Times as well as small-scale blogs about niche topics. The app will feature a feed of popular articles just like the way videos are presented on Reels and TikTok. Once a user taps on an article that interests them, Artifact will prioritise similar posts and stories.Since its launch, the app has got several features powered by artificial intelligence. These include the ability to summarise articles, explain it, and rewrite clickbaity headlines with the help of OpenAI’s GPT-4 large language model.