now on bbc news, all the latest business news live from singapore. a strong earnings results for way bow. will we see similar numbers for tencent? —— tencent?. good morning, asia. glad you could join us for this midweek edition of asia business report. chinese social media giant weibo has reported reve nu es of media giant weibo has reported revenues of just media giant weibo has reported revenues ofjust under $200 million, an increase of 67% compared the year ago levels. profits are coming in at about $47 million us. the company claims 347 million monthly active users, an increase of 30% over the past year. another tech giant in china, tencent, is tipped to report encouraging numbers today. but with a saturated market, what are the other avenues for growth? certainly they need to start looking outside of the chinese market. there's still a lot of growth in chinese market, for example tencent are actively looking outside, looking at notjust china but around hong kong and singapore. the chinese communities in europe and america. and also exploring other opportunities. we are exploring advertising channels, getting companies to put their brands on wii chat, for tencent. they are already approaching the number of users that whatsapp has? injanuary number of users that whatsapp has? in january whatsapp said they number of users that whatsapp has? injanuary whatsapp said they had 1.2 billion active monthly users. i think wechat are gunning to overtake whatsapp. they are also targeting international markets. whatsapp and twitter are already having a major footprint in the international market, but the likes of weibo and tencent are catching up just with that powerful billion strong mainland base and the chinese dyas barack. you look at the western counterparts. —— diaspora they have a limited ability to get their footprint into the market. if they have a footprint in the mainland market, this western technology giants could overtake the mainland companies? they have to integrate with the chinese governments. which will take time. that will certainly ta ke will take time. that will certainly take time. some of the world's egypt military contractors are robbing elbows with buyers at the government defence position. crossing over to my colleague. wheeling and dealing for military hardware? that's right. right now i am at the naval base and it's a veritable parking lot for warships on display. kindly you can see the chinese frigate from the people's liberation army and you have the pakistani frigate as well. why ami have the pakistani frigate as well. why am i here? we have all of these military contractors who are willing and dealing at the international maritime defence exhibition. and it is all against the backdrop of strategic uncertainty on the korean peninsular in the south china sea. is there evidence that a lot of people are buying more? i caught up with one european manufacturer who is selling increasingly to the asians. countries in this region generally are starting to realise that there are things going on around them and they are not aware of what's happening. events are occurring just over the horizon and nations and armed forces don't have the awareness or the flexible response. we see a lot of interest in our products, like global eye, a multiplatform surveillance. an ability to keep the man on events in air, land and sea. we have our swordfish maritime patrol platform. we stay out all on time, get there quickly, maximum endurance and capability. but again, compact and affordable platform. a naval solutions, warships, extremely advanced technology that you can see oi'i advanced technology that you can see on display, that is of great interest. we also build radars, command and control systems, so that you can network and link your forces together. who are you increasingly selling to in the region? india and australia are our biggest market at the moment. we see huge potential to do great future business in india and australia, for example. but that's to exclude everyone up —— anyone else. we have a big base in thailand and indonesia. we are active in japan and thailand and indonesia. we are active injapan and korea, malaysia. we have great interest in our products from pretty much every country in this region and we see this show as a great venue to engage. notjust this show as a great venue to engage. not just with asia—pacific but with the world. but you can't sell to china? we are european as a company, we are subject to the same restrictions. we have some commercial business in air traffic control. the rules are clear in china. no business there and we are not active there. who are the buyers of these military hardware? there is evidence that asian countries are spending more. for instance, singapore is one of the largest spenders in southeast asia. they spend about 3% of their gdp on defence. that's how much the americans spend percentagewise and just yesterday the singapore government announced they bought two more german manufactured submarines from one manufacturer and we have a chinese here, the chinese pavilion are at the conference for the first time. they are being represented by a number of companies. thank you so much for the update. more and more jobs looks set to be automated in the nearfuture, something concerning workers and politicians. but how capable are the latest machines and other likely to replace humans altogether or help us all be more productive in our work? this report from an exhibition in paris where the world's bleeding robotics companies and start ups are showing off their creations. from around the world the robots have come to paris to show off their new skills. this one response to the colour green. it seems to be distracted by the cameraman. they are leading the factories and trying to find roles in our everyday lives. it has three functions. the first is to try to monitor the health of the people. carer is one job they are after. it is designed to be a companion, alerting relatives if necessary. it will survey the mood of the person. if the elderly comes with a low activity it will alert you. so it is really like a nurse at home. more and more robots are now appearing in customer service roles. this is essentially the kind of automatic machine you see in lots of cinemas already, but with a robot interface. i can interact with it. i can pay for my tickets, as you would normally, but i can also leave a video review and it reacts to be in certain ways. they claim it is 30 times more interactive than a standard ticket machine. do we really wa nt standard ticket machine. do we really want to interact with a robot when we go to the cinema? i'm not so sure. this chinese robot is supposed to help out in a supermarket, offering advice to customers. you have to bend down to talk to it. why is it so small? if a robot is too big people will think it is dangerous. so when we decided we need to have a robot that is lovely, to look more friendly for the users. the big fear of course if they will ta ke the big fear of course if they will takejobs. this the big fear of course if they will take jobs. this autonomous tractor is the farm worker of the future. this delivery robot could replace a bad drivers. the industry claims the robots will improve our working lives. they only take out the part thatis lives. they only take out the part that is really repetitive, tedious 01’ that is really repetitive, tedious or dangerous. 0r that is really repetitive, tedious or dangerous. or not interesting, where we have no human value. and then humans have more time. this autonomous fish shouldn't take anybody‘s jobs and they don't need feeding. we will have to get used to robots in all sorts of unexpected places. stay within —— staying with technology and twitter shares rose on the night. —— overnight. the new ceo will be back to work full—time ina ceo will be back to work full—time in a couple of weeks and will focus on guiding the company's culture. he left in 2011 during executive shakeup is at the social media platform. before we go here is a look at the markets. asia is in negative territory in early wednesday trade. it is hurt by weaker than expected us housing data and political turmoil in washington is raising concerns about the outlook for passing expected legislation. the nikkei is down by three quarters of 196 nikkei is down by three quarters of 1% and the all 0rds giving back .5%. thanks for investing your time with us. thanks for investing your time with us. sport today is coming up. the top stories this hour: reports from the us say president trump asked his former fbi chief to drop an investigation into a key aide. the white house says it didn't happen. following north korea's latest missile test, the un security council meets behind closed doors and the us vows to call—out states backing pyongyang. a man who was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder a female police officer outside the libyan embassy in london in 1984 has been told that he would face charges. scotla nd told that he would face charges. scotland yard said that key material in the case of pc yvonne fletcher could be using court on grounds of national security. in wales, the nationalist party plaid cymru has launched its manifesto, promising to give the country a "strong voice" during brexit. the document pledges to "protect" wales from what it calls a "tidal wave" of attacks from the tories. policies include scrapping business rates and a publicly owned bank. 0ur wales correspondent sian lloyd reports. this has been a labour stronghold at westminster for more than 100 years. it is represented in the welsh assembly by plaid cymru and the party has the parliamentary seat within its sights. no confidence then that its leader leanne wood chose to launch party's general election manifesto here. voters paste will have to change if plaid cymru is to make a breakthrough. 0ne of the party's key pledges is to defend wales post brexit. how are you going to appeal to voters in places like this, places that voted to leave the eu, when you are seeing as somebody who wanted to remain in the new? we've accepted the results, we've carried on accepting it since the day it was announced. we've put forward today a post brexit plan for wales, a positive plan, to try to ta ke wales, a positive plan, to try to take advantage of opportunities that might arise as we leave the european union. plaid is telling voters it would vest defend voters against what it says are cruel and reckless conservatives. probably default plaid cymru, to be honest. that's not an plaid cymru, to be honest. that's notan anti— plaid cymru, to be honest. that's not an anti— labour vote, it's a plaid cymru vote. plaid cymru, 0k, they are the party of wales, but i don't —— i don't think they can do anything. the only other way is to vote conservative. plaid cymru will need to change the voting habits of generations. don't forget, we have lots more on oui’ don't forget, we have lots more on our website, including our top story, the developing story from the us, where the media is reporting that donald trump asked the former fbi director to end an investigation into michael flynn. let's get the sports news now. hello, this is sport today, live from the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme: the gunners and the city slickers are still in a top—four shootout after wins on tuesday. pain in rome and no love from paris — sharapova retires hurt and gets rejected by roland garros. no wonder he's smiling — fabio fognini knocks out defending champion andy murray. and paris gets the presidential seal of approval to host the 2024 0lympics. hi there, wherever you are around the world. welcome to sport today. arsenal have given themselves one final chance to sneak into the champions league next season. the gunners beat sunderland 2—0 to keep themselves in a top—four tussle with manchester city and liverpool. arsenal manager arsene wenger told the bbc, "we've got in on the final day many times" before.