Demand for farm equipment has soared amid the pandemicWERE ANY more evidence needed to reflect how surprising 2020 has been, consider tractor sales. In April Hemant Sikka, president of Mahindra & Mahindra’s farm-equipment business—which makes around 300,000 of the things a year, more than any other company anywhere—sat in his Mumbai flat near his shuttered…
HAVING more or less invented the smartphone in 2007, Apple has lately lagged behind other gadget-makers. On October 13th it caught up, unveiling its first 5G-enabled iPhones. Expect sales to pick up as users who have put off purchases finally upgrade. Whether they can find a zippy 5G network is another matter. Opensignal, a research…
Minimarts let people shop little, often and locally—just the ticket in pandemic timesCORNER SHOPS are within walking distance of many homes, open long hours and small enough not to require customers to linger too long inside. They no longer sell just basic necessities, such as milk, beer and sweets. And they offer other services, from…
Washington is increasingly hostile to Chinese firms. Not Wall StreetCHINESE FIRMS get a frosty reception in America these days. President Donald Trump is a relentless China-basher. His administration has tried to crush Huawei, a telecoms giant, ban TikTok and WeChat, two popular Chinese-owned apps, and expel Chinese companies listed on American stock exchanges. No wonder…
IN THE EARLY 17th century the best place to gather news in London was the old cathedral of St Paul’s, a place that buzzed with gossip on politics and was described—unusually for a house of worship—as “the ear’s brothel”. Some of the informants were entrepreneurs; they had recently started writing “letters of news” which they…
Both aerospace heavyweights emerge battered from the 16-year boutA 16-YEAR FIGHT at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) between Boeing, an American planemaker, and Airbus, a European one, over illegal subsidies resembles a heavyweight boxing bout in which both sides raise their gloves to claim the round. And so it was on October 13th, when the…
EARLIER THIS year the covid-19 pandemic brought SoftBank Group to its knees. As bondholders fled heavily indebted firms, the junk-rated Japanese tech conglomerate looked shaky. In March its flamboyant boss, Son Masayoshi, announced a $41bn sale of assets to return to stability.Mr Son has since regained his footing—or at least his chutzpah—enumerating the upsides of…
The crisis has hit tech’s spiritual home hard, but it is already planning aheadEditor’s note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hubFIRING…
AMERICA HAS it in for Huawei—and not just because some of its politicians fear the Chinese giant’s networking gear lets spooks in Beijing eavesdrop on customers’ communications. The firm, a world leader in futuristic 5G telecoms, also symbolises China’s technological and economic ascent. President Donald Trump does not like it one bit. William Barr, his…
A YEAR AGO your columnist joined a sailing trip to Islay, an island in western Scotland famous for peaty malt whisky that can singe the hair off your nostrils. The mooring was in front of a distillery called Ardbeg, its name painted in huge black letters on a whitewashed wall facing the sea. Its breakfast…