Tuesday, March 11, 2014 INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY 29
THE GUARDIAN www.ngrguardiannews.com
‘Global debt exceeds $100tr as governments binge’ HE amount of debt globT ally has soared more than 40 per cent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates, according to the Bank for International Settlements. The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion in the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almost twice the U.S.’s gross domestic product. Borrowing has soared as central banks suppress benchmark interest rates to spur growth after the U.S. subprime mortgage market collapsed and Lehman Brothers Holdings
Microsoft overtakes BlackBerry in smartphone sales ICROSOFT has overtakM en BlackBerry in the US smartphone market although both are far behind the market leaders Android and Apple. Apple ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 41.6 percent OEM market share, while Google Android led as the #1 smartphone platform with 51.7 per cent platform market share. Google Sites ranked as the top mobile media property, while Facebook was the top individual app. Android ranked as the top smartphone platform in January with 51.7 per cent market share, followed by Apple with 41.6 per cent (up one percentage point), BlackBerry with 3.1 per cent, Microsoft with 3.2 per cent and Symbian with 0.2 per cent. 159.8 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones (66.8 per cent mobile market penetration) during the three months ending in January, up seven per cent since October, according to Comscore. Apple ranked as the top OEM with 41.6 per cent of U.S. smartphone subscribers (up one percentage point from October). Samsung ranked second with 26.7 per cent market share (up 1.3 percentage points), followed by LG with 6.9 per cent (up 0.3 percentage points), Motorola with 6.4 per cent and HTC with 5.4 per cent. Google Sites ranked as the top web property on smartphones, reaching 89.4 per cent of the mobile media audience (mobile browsing and app usage), followed by Facebook (86.6 per cent), Yahoo Sites (86.2 per cent) and Amazon Sites (69 per cent). Facebook ranked as the top smartphone app, reaching 77.6 per cent of the app audience, followed by Google Play (52.4 per cent), YouTube (49.7 per cent) and Google Search (48.9 per cent).
Inc.’s bankruptcy sent the world into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yields on all types of bonds, from governments to corporates and mortgages, average about two per cent, down from more than 4.8 per cent in 2007, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Broad Market Index. “Given the significant expansion in government spending in recent years, governments (including central, state and local governments) have been the largest debt issuers,” according to Branimir Gruic, an analyst, and Andreas Schrimpf, an economist at the BIS. The organisation is owned by 60 central banks and hosts the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, a
Given the significant expansion in government spending in recent years, governments (including central, state and local governments) have been the largest debt issuers. group of regulators and central bankers that sets global capital standards. Marketable U.S. government debt outstanding has surged to a record $12 trillion, up from $4.5 trillion at the end of 2007, according to U.S. Treasury data compiled by Bloomberg. Corporate bond sales globally jumped during the period, with issuance totaling more than $21 trillion, Bloomberg data show. Concerned that high debt loads would cause interna-
tional investors to avoid their markets, many nations resorted to austerity measures of reduced
spending and increased taxes, reining in their economies in the process as they tried to restore the fiscal order they abandoned to fight the worldwide recession. Adjusting budgets to ignore interest payments, the International Monetary Fund said late last year that the socalled primary deficit in the Group of Seven countries reached an average 5.1 per cent in 2010 when also
smoothed to ignore large economic swings. The measure will fall to 1.2 per cent this year, the IMF predicted. The unprecedented retrenchments between 2010 and 2013 amounted to 3.5 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product and 3.3 per cent of euro-area GDP, according to Julian Callow, chief international economist at Barclays Plc in London.
MTN to take over rival mobile network Africa’s Telkom Sin OUTH has confirmed that it is talks that could see the outsourcing of its mobile network infrastructure to rival mobile network MTN. In a statement to the stock market, Telkom confirmed that the talks cover the potential outsourcing
of the operation of the Telkom radio access network (RAN) to MTN. If the deal is approved, MTN will take over financial and operational responsibility for the rollout and operation of Telkom’s radio access network (RAN). The arrangements will opti-
mise usage of their respective RANs but leave all other areas unaffected and independent. The two companies will also conclude reciprocal roaming agreements to enable customers to roam between the two networks.