NALCO, whose tenders serve as an international benchmark,
last week finalised a long-term contract for export of 270,000
tonnes of alumina for deliveries in 2012 to a London-based buyer
at 16.2 percent of the LME aluminium price on a FOB basis.
RIM will offer premium apps worth more than $100 to customers and a month of technical support for businesses free of charge, hoping to stem fresh defections from the BlackBerry, whose market share was already shrinking before the incident.Analysts have said RIM needs to quickly repair the damage to its image caused by the outage and stem the loss of corporate customers who are now questioning the reliability of the BlackBerry.”RIM has responded swiftly but this won’t undo the damage done to its reputation,” analyst Geoff Blaber at CCS Insight told Reuters earlier on Monday. “This may go some way to appeasing customers but what’s critical is that the problem does not repeat itself.”The stock was trading 5.1 percent lower at $22.75 on the Nasdaq by 11:30 a.m. It has shed more than 60 percent of its value since the start of the year.The BlackBerry has in recent years lost market share to Apple Inc’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s Android system. At the same time it has sought to make deeper inroads beyond its core corporate base, with a special focus on younger consumers and in emerging markets.Highlighting the challenges, Apple said it sold 4 million of its new iPhone 4S in the first three days after launch last week.”DEEPLY GRATEFUL”RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie told Reuters on Monday the company wanted to make amends with customers.”This is our way of expressing appreciation for their patience during the recent service disruptions and a tangible way of telling them how deeply grateful we are for their continued business,” he said in a phone interview.Balsillie declined to estimate how much the offer would cost RIM and said he was unable to say whether RIM might have to revise its earnings forecast for the current quarter, which ends in late November.The financial impact could prove sizable if a large enough portion of RIM’s more than 70 million subscribers take up the offers.Balsillie said RIM was not running any tests on its network at the time of the failure and was still investigating the precise cause of the breakdown, the company’s worst ever.The free apps on offer include games such as Bejeweled, and premium versions of a translation service and the music discovery tool Shazam.Richard Levick, who runs a U.S. consultancy that specializes in crisis management, praised the move but said the company should have made the announcement last week.”I think it’s a good start, but they are always late,” he said. “They are always behind the curve.”Francisco Jeronimo, an analysts at IDC, had a different perspective on the offer. He said the decision was a clever move by RIM because it would help customers to discover the app service.He said the company was likely to have struck a deal with app developers to keep the cost down.”For RIM, this is an interesting way to attract users to the App World and incentivize them to search and download apps,” he said.”More important than the offer itself, is that RIM is showing goodwill and being humble. They recognized the problem, apologized and now they are compensating their users.”
* Shares up 1.5 percent to $55.52Oct 12 (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is finally
seeing sustained improvement at its U.S. discount chain, with
sales at Walmart stores open at least a year rising for three
months straight, Walmart U.S. Chief Executive Bill Simon said on
Wednesday.Same-store sales account for about 98 percent of Walmart’s
total sales in the United States, so fixing the slump at existing
stores is critical for the world’s largest retailer.Walmart U.S., by far the company’s largest business, has
posted nine consecutive quarters of same-store sales declines.
While such sales rose in July, the last month of the fiscal second
quarter, same-store sales fell 0.9 percent in the quarter.Walmart U.S. same-store sales continued to rise in August and
September, Simon said at Wal-Mart’s 18th annual meeting for the
investment community in Rogers, Arkansas, which is also being
broadcast over the Internet. Traffic in stores has increased, led
by traffic in the food department, Simon said.He also said that Walmart U.S. is working on lowering prices
for shoppers by a cumulative $2 billion over the next two years as
it works on trying to get them to shop more often.The money for the price reduction plan will come from changes
such as reducing new store and remodeling costs as well as
improving productivity and efficiency in areas such as stores,
distribution, transportation and marketing.
A Reuters poll of brokerages had forecast a profit of 18.91
billion rupees for the company, which counts Goldman Sachs
, BT Group and BP among its main clients.India’s $76 billion showpiece IT sector, which feeds off
increased outsourcing by companies looking to cut costs, is
expected to face pricing pressure and a decline in new orders
due to a struggling global economy.Infosys, worth about $29 billion, has lost more
than a quarter of its market value this year, versus a 25
percent fall in the sector index and a 19 percent fall
in the Mumbai index .
In our latest post on Spanish soccer, Mark Elkington in Madrid raises the prospect of out-of-sorts striker Fernando Torres missing out on the Euro 2012 finals as competition for places heats up.
Fierce competition for places in Spain’s frontline for Euro 2012 has increased the pressure on misfiring Chelsea striker Fernando Torres.
Some are even suggesting the hero of Spain’s triumph at Euro 2008 may not even make the squad for the tournament in Poland and Ukraine next year and have speculated coach Vicente del Bosque could pick strikers including Alvaro Negredo (pictured) and Fernando Llorente ahead of the former Liverpool man.
The world and continental champions thrashed Liechtenstein 6-0 on Tuesday to qualify for the finals, but Torres was left to watch from the stands as David Villa, Spain’s all-time top scorer, and Negredo both netted doubles.
“There were ten players who didn’t play,” Del Bosque said when asked afterwards about the surprise decision to leave Torres out.
“He is an important player but the people selected for the national team are those who do well for their clubs, not the other way round.”
Torres has scored 27 goals for Spain, including the winner in their 1-0 Euro 2008 final victory over Germany, but was short of match fitness after injury and contributed little to last year’s victorious World Cup finals campaign.
The 27-year-old continued to struggle for form in the Premier League last season when a high-profile transfer from Liverpool to Chelsea failed to spark a change in fortunes and
he still has only one goal to his name at Stamford Bridge.
Over the last year he has only managed to find the net once for the national team, in a June friendly against the United States, and the competition to be Villa’s strike partner is
heating up.
Barcelona’s Villa took his tally to 49 in Logrono on Tuesday, while Sevilla’s Negredo bagged his third goal in two matches and his fifth in seven outings.
Athletic Bilbao’s Llorente and Valencia’s Roberto Soldado, who notched a hat-trick on the opening day of the La Liga season, are also pushing hard for a place.
Former Real Madrid youth team forward Negredo, played down the significance of Torres’s relegation to the stands.
“He came down to the dressing room after the game and congratulated me,” Negredo told sports daily AS.
“I’m not going to enter into whether he was annoyed or anything, it was a great gesture to congratulate me for the goals.
“I would understand it if he was, because it isn’t much fun to come and not play a single minute, but he is a great colleague and is one of the captains of the national team.”
PHOTO: Spain’s Alvaro Negredo celebrates after scoring his second goal against Liechtenstein during their Euro 2012 Group I qualifier at the Las Gaunas stadium in Logrono, northern Spain, September 6, 2011. .
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