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HSBC has no plans to launch a cryptocurrency trading desk or offer the digital coins as an investment to customers, because they are too volatile and lack transparency, its chief executive Noel Quinn said.
Europe s largest bank s stance on cryptocurrencies comes as the world s biggest and best-known digital currency, Bitcoin, has tumbled nearly 50 per cent from the year s high, after China cracked down on mining the currency and prominent advocate Elon Musk tempered his support.
HSBC s move marks it out against rivals such as Goldman Sachs, which Reuters in March said has restarted its cryptocurrency trading desk, and UBS which media reports said was exploring ways to offer the currencies as an investment product.
Apple tends to cater to the higher end of the (US) market; so it might grab a small portion of LG s sales, Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen said. It s more likely that Samsung inherits a lot of it because both vendors compete across similar markets.
Globally, LG s market share shrank to 2 per cent in 2020, a massive drop from its status as the world s third-largest smartphone maker behind Samsung Electronics and Apple during its peak in 2013.
The company shipped 23 million phones last year, compared with Samsung s 256 million, according to Counterpoint.
Counterpoint analyst Tarun Pathak said LG was mostly competing in the mid-tier, as its flagship phones received tepid market response.
Volkswagen, whose shares rose as much as 3.8 per cent, did not specifically say how much the plan will cost. It said in December that it planned to spend €35 billion ($41.7bn) on e-mobility as a whole by 2025.
The group had been a laggard on electrification until it admitted in 2015 to cheating on US diesel emissions tests and had to deal with new Chinese quotas for electric vehicles. It now has one of the most ambitious programmes in the industry.
Volkswagen said the European factories will have a joint production capacity of up to 240 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year, adding the first 40 GWh would come from Sweden s Northvolt, with production starting in 2023.