Doug McMillion, president and CEO of Walmart, told China Daily during his recent visit to Beijing that the world’s largest retailer by revenue is looking to drive innovation in three categories: low price and quality merchandise, redefining assortment through learning from partnerships and competitors, and creating fun and efficient shopping experiences for customers.

Walmart China plans to double the number of Sam’s Club stores, its high-end membership stores in China, to 40 by 2020. Other measures to boost Sam’s Club include improving fresh food quality and stocking of more private brands, he said. Currently, Sam’s Club has nearly 2 million members with a renewal rate of core members of about 80 per cent.

Last week, Walmart opened its first community-based intelligent supermarket in Shenzhen, a 1,200-square-metre format with about 9,000 items of merchandise. Wern-Yuen Tan, president and CEO of Walmart China, said the new format will also be available online, which allows deliveries to customers who live under 2 kilometres by 29 minutes through an alliance with portals like JD Daojia and New Dada. “We are very pleased with the development of our online business. Last year, Walmart China’s e-commerce enjoyed 250 per cent growth and is expected to see a triple digit increase this year,” said the president.

McMillion said China’s retail market has enormous growth potential. Walmart’s investment in China will always be crucial to the company and it will open 30 to 40 new stores this year. The retailer is investing 700 million yuan ($111.6 million) in the self-operated perishable delivery center to strengthen its fresh business – the company’s largest single investment in the country so far. The center will be put into use by the end of this year.

McMillion, who claimed to make Walmart a technology company last year, has also emphasized the significance of automation in the retail industry. The company is testing Scan& Go in 11 Walmart hypermarkets in China, which enables customers to scan the bar code on products and complete payment on a mini programme on WeChat. In the future, all supermarkets will offer such services.

Walmart in recent years has slowed down its pace of expansion and is focusing on quality and sustainable development. In 2017, Walmart opened 31 new stores including 27 hypermarkets and four Sam’s Club stores, remodeling 62 existing stores with 300 million yuan. Most of its revamp is for the stocking of fresh goods.

The Digital Innovation Fund managed by BOV Capital, marks a definitive shift to foster startups and build further on the business capabilities of digital technology and talent within the country.

The 2.3-billion rupees Digital Innovation Fund was debuted by the Malaysian Prime Minister in December 2017, and invests in growth stage Sri Lankan digital startups, with investments ranging between 50 million rupees and 200 million rupees. 20 per cent of the total fund has also been set aside for investments in early stage or seed startups, particularly those looking for less than 40 million rupees.

The initial screening by BOV Capital considers several factors including revenues, user traction and scalability and includes a comprehensive study of the business model. Subsequently, the startups are approved by the Investment Committee of the Digital Innovation Fund, for further evaluation prior to awarding the funding.

One of the investee companies, Roar, is a South Asian new media platform that creates high quality content in five languages, namely English, Sinhala, Tamil, Hindi and Bangla and is gaining online traction for its eight different sites drawing over three million unique readers and over thirty four million video views each month. Ranked among the top 50 websites for Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, it contributes over 500 articles per month covering current affairs, business, lifestyle, technology, arts, and culture.

Commenting on what’s next for Roar Media, Mustafa Kassim, CEO of this New Media Platform said, “Roar has grown immensely across the South Asian continent over the last 24 months, and now, with backing from Dialog Axiata and BOV Capital, we can accelerate this growth even further. We can leverage these networks across South Asia to help us reach many more users and drive sales to the next level.”

InsureMe is a dynamic and innovative insurance broking company backed by a team of professionals with unmatched experience in the insurance industry, offering a transparent and unbiased professional service comparison encompassing a wide range of convenient insurance solutions direct from key insurers in the country.

Speaking about InsureMe’s plans to change the landscape of insurance, Vipula Dharmapala, Director/CEO said, “We are delighted to partner with Dialog Axiata and BOV Capital through the Digital Innovation Fund, and are confident that this partnership will take the Sri Lankan insurance industry to a new level.”

Twelve years on, the job is still hard, but at least his income has increased.

Li’s first client was a professor who paid him 160 yuan (Bt790) in March 2006 to record and transcribe discussions during a two-hour seminar in Beijing. Li and his wife, also a stenographer, made about 1,800 yuan a month that year, but today they can earn up to 30,000 yuan a month.

“I could barely imagine such an income when I was starting out,” said Li, 36, who now leads a team of 12 stenographers covering events across the Chinese capital.

However, some in the business fear breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and smart voice-recording software is threatening their industry.

“I’m kind of worried whether this job will still exist in the years ahead,” said Pan Li, who has been in the business for 12 years. She works with her friend Ma Ruijuan from a home office in Handan, Hebei province, about 400 kilometre from Beijing. They handle interviews, academic speeches, court hearings, phone surveys and celebrity appearances, charging 80 yuan an hour.

Pan, Ma and Li were all inspired to become stenographers around 2006 after spotting advertisements in local newspapers that suggested demand for such skills would soar over the following decade.

The prediction was correct, and all three have so far enjoyed decent careers. Yet as demand begins to drop due to new technologies, so are incomes.

Li mostly now works conferences, seminars and forums, but in 2006 he was receiving a lot of business from journalists who wanted quick transcriptions of their interviews.

“They’d give me their recordings and I’d usually charge them 70 or 80 yuan an hour,” he said. But since 2015, that kind of work has all but disappeared. “Few are still coming to me today because they can simply use smart software and apps to produce their own transcripts,” Li added.

After graduating with an advertising degree from college in his native Shenyang, Liaoning province, Li worked for several months for a local ad agency. But he was not happy with the salary.

“Then I saw a newspaper ad for a stenography training school that said the industry would be one of the most promising for the next 10 years and promised high salaries,” he recalled. “At that time, none of my friends and relatives had ever heard of such a job.”

Li and his wife signed up for classes, paying about 10,000 yuan for tuition, and over the next six months dedicated themselves to learning how to use a stenotype, a machine that enables users to record speech in shorthand.

“The hardest part is improving your speed. To go from typing 60 words a minute to 120 words required us to practice by typing millions and millions of words,” he said.

Due to the limited demand in his hometown, Li decided to move to Beijing shortly after completing his training.

Stenographers typically start by transcribing audio files and then progress to conferences, which are high pressure but pay about 300 yuan an hour. Li started working at conferences in 2008.

Ma from Hebei relocated to the capital in 2006 for the same reason as Li. “Most of my clients were introduced by friends in the same industry, and I was usually hired to do transcripts of media interviews,” the 32-year-old said.

Before long, she was regularly working in the studios of China Central Television, the State broadcaster, and Beijing TV, and by 2010, she had helped produce transcripts of a number of high-profile shows, including CCTV’s Legal Report.

“Those were the most exciting experiences of my 20s,” she said. “I didn’t know what a TV interview was like until I stepped into a TV studio.”

Ma eventually moved back to her hometown with her husband and children, but she continues to work on interviews by receiving and sending files through the Internet.

Courts are a major source of work for stenographers, who record proceedings for the public record. However, tech tycoon Liu Qingfeng is hoping to change that.

Liu’s company, iFlytek-which is headquartered in Hefei, Anhui province, and makes language input software and voice-recognition programs, unveiled an AI system last month that will not only record court hearings, but also aid judges in reviewing criminal cases.

“We’re now able to use AI to help judges review four types of cases, namely homicide, theft, telecom fraud and illegal fundraising,” he said at a news conference. As he spoke, his words appeared on a screen beside him almost instantly, demonstrating the speed and accuracy of the company’s technology.

Stenographer Li Zhengjie said the rapid developments seen in AI in recent years have raised concerns about the future of his profession.

“I’ve been thinking about this problem since 2010, and I used to worry my job may one day no longer exist,” he said, adding that voice-recognition software like that produced by iFlytek is the No 1 reason why demand from journalists for transcription services is drying up.

When the conversation takes place in a very quiet environment and all the speakers are talking loudly and clearly, such apps work better and more efficiently than us humans,” he conceded.

Following a hacking incident in which a massive amount of Coincheck customers’ funds were lost, the Financial Services Agency has stepped up its monitoring of the virtual currency industry and some operators with sloppy management have been forced out. Meanwhile, major companies from different industries have entered the virtual currency industry one after another, expecting high growth.

Last week, Monex Managing Director and Chairman Oki Matsumoto said at a press conference, “I believe there is a strong and huge future in virtual currency,” adding, “Coincheck has technology and [a large] customer base.” Matsumoto also expressed his desire for a future initial public offering of the company’s stock.

The reason behind the high expectations for Coincheck, which suffered the massive loss of virtual currency, is the company’s high profitability.

According to documents released by Monex, the final profit of Coincheck for the business year ended in March 2017 stood 471 million yen. It is expected that the company recorded more profit for the year ended in March this year due to expansion of virtual currency trading.

The net assets of Coincheck at the end of March 2018 are likely to have exceeded those as of the end of March 2017, even after compensation is made to holders of the stolen virtual currency NEM, according to the released documents. The amount of compensation is believed to be around 46 billion yen. It means that the company made a large profit, exceeding the amount of compensation over the year.

In the business of virtual currency exchange, high service fees, which are several percent of the amount of transactions, are expected. The profit margin is incomparably higher than that of the securities industry, which has been facing fierce competition to lower its fees.

Another motive for Monex to buy Coincheck is acquiring its large number of customers, with 1.7 million accounts. In addition, Monex has been forced to engage in an uphill battle with rivals, such as SBI Securities Co and Rakuten Securities Inc, in its main business of online securities transactions.

Sources in the financial sector say that the 3.6 billion yen purchase price for Coincheck is too cheap. However, the released documents include a note saying it is possible that the price could be increased by up to half of profit in the future. As a result, the final purchase price could become much higher. While a risk of litigation against NEM holders remains, the prospects for Coincheck remain unclear.

As for Coincheck, its sloppy internal management system became apparent in the wake of the massive virtual currency loss incident.

Taking the situation seriously, the FSA issued business improvement orders twice to the company, calling for a drastic overhaul of the management system. To continue its business, there was no choice but for the company to receive capital from other companies.

Coincheck President Koichiro Wada and director Yusuke Otsuka will both remain as executive directors, but resign from their current positions.

At a press conference last week, Monex’s Matsumoto said he aims to make Coincheck a formally registered virtual currency exchange in about two months and fully resume its operations.

Referring to the registration of Coincheck, Taro Aso, in his capacity as the state minister for financial services, said the prospect of registering Coincheck depends on “how far [the company] could work on” restructuring its management system.

More than 100 companies are aiming to register as virtual currency exchange operators.

High-profile companies such as Line Corp and Yahoo Japan Corp have recently unveiled their plans to enter the industry.

These companies expect that gaining a foothold in the exchange business would help them expand activities into money transfer and settlement services.

The Fair Trade Commission’s secretariat recently agreed to impose penalties on Apple Korea over the unfair practice and sent an examination report to Apple Korea to seek an explanation, according to the sources.

The FTC will confirm whether to impose sanctions and the range within a few days after hearing from Apple Korea.

Apple Korea has faced criticism over the past few years from local mobile carriers for passing the costs for iPhone sales, including advertising costs, launch events and repair costs to them.

In November, three telecom operators -SKT, KT and LG Uplus – aired TV commercials promoting the designs and functions of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X as Apple requested, but at their own expense.

iPhone ads

“When you see iPhone’s TV commercials here, everything is the same except for a telecom operator’s logo at the end of the commercials. Still, telecom firms should bear all the costs standing at billions of won,” said an executive of one of the three firms on the condition of anonymity.

The price of Apple’s premium iPhone X has also faced criticism among local consumers. The price of its 64-gigabyte and 256-gigabyte models are around 200,000 won ($187) more expensive than in Japan and the US.

Amid growing speculation, the FTC began an investigation in 2016 and raided the Apple Korea office in June of 2016 and November of 2017.

In other nations, Apple faced a penalty of 700 million won in Taiwan in 2013 for controlling iPhone costs and was imposed with a fine of 64 billion won in France over unfair practices against carriers last year.