Daily Archives

In China… the world’s largest car market, BMW will become less affordable. As if the car wasn’t expensive enough, the prices of the X5 and X6 models have increased by 4% and 7%. The rising costs are a result of the increased import duties placed on US-made cars by China. BMW follows Tesla as the second major automaker to increase prices in China.

Their best customer… is China, selling 560,000 cars there in 2017. That figure amounts to more than the amount sold in the United States and Germany combined. The German automaker exported around 81,000 vehicles from the United States to China last year, which accounted for $2.4B in sales.

Ties to China… BMW had already announced plans to increase production in China. According to the company, this move relates to growing demand in the country – rather than dodging tariffs. And even though a BMW will cost up to 7% more, the automaker is absorbing some of that cost with their customers. However, this can only go on so long, and if it continues, BMW may look to move some production from America to Europe which pays lower duties. But I am guessing most of us don’t live in China and can’t afford a BMW anyway – but it’s good to stay informed, right?

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T-Mobile has Nokia… locked in to supply it with $3.5 billion in 5G network gear the companies announced on Monday. 5G networks should deliver faster speeds and make systems more reliable which will benefit areas like medical monitoring, driverless cars, and industrial automation. This marks a significant move in an industry that has been hesitant to upgrade their existing networks.

Nokia will be… supplying the 5G hardware, software, and services that will enable T-Mobile better service to highly trafficked urban areas. The company will also be providing T-Mobile with its AirScale radio access, cloud-connected hardware, software and acceleration services.

Good news for all… because T-Mobile recently agreed to a merger with Sprint and will now deliver the first nationwide 5G services. Nokia is a company that has seen better days, but can breathe a sigh of relief with this T-Mobile award.

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Aaaand now they aren’t… because the stock fell below $1 on Monday, again. A low share price was the exact thing MoviePass wanted to avoid when they approved a 250-to-1 reverse stock split that moved share prices from 8 cents to $21. And now the company is worried they will be delisted from the NASDAQ, again.

Here’s why… other than the fact the company borrowed $5 million on Friday to keep the service running after a brief outage, there were also reported problems with the app itself over the weekend. Users were having trouble checking in – a “technical issue” according to the company.

Oh, and “peak pricing”… has been unpopular with customers because some have reported paying as much as $8 extra as a result. At that rate, you mine as well be buying the ticket yourself. It seems that MoviePass was too good to be true and they are pissing customers off in droves with cash shortages and technology glitches. But $10 for unlimited movies makes us really want them to succeed.

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