# Meta Sees Trillion-Dollar Threat in Social Media Trial

An episode of [Bloomberg Intelligence](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/326301337), 18 Aug 2026, 22 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7f534b8c-9e91-429a-b102-ae3c00090c6d/9f9f7ffa-ae68-4fd2-b37f-b4aa011690e1/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=0ad812bf-fd15-4012-a18c-ae3c00090c76

Watch Paul and Scarlet LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF. Bloomberg Intelligence hosted by Paul Sweeney and Scarlet Fu -David Kirkpatrick, Founder of Techonomy, discusses the Meta youth social media addiction trial. Meta Platforms Inc. is facing a jury trial in federal court over claims that it deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to encourage compulsive use among young users. The top legal officers of 29 states are seeking financial penalties and court orders that could force Meta to change how it operates its platforms, alleging violations of state consumer protection and federal privacy laws. -Mandeep Singh, Global Head of Tech Research for Bloomberg Intelligence, discusses top tech stories. Anthropic PBC is on track to generate annualized revenue of more than $65 billion based on its current performance, up more than sevenfold from its pace at the end of last year. -- Lindsay Dutch, Bloomberg Intelligence Consumer Hardlines Senior Analyst, discusses Home Depot earnings. Home Depot Inc.’s results beat estimates in the latest quarter, a sign that spending on improvement projects is holding up despite high borrowing and housing costs. The company’s strategy, which includes expanding its business serving professional contractors and building out its e-commerce offerings, has helped to blunt the impact of a housing market weighed down by high home prices and interest rates. -Tim Craighead, Bloomberg Intelligence Global Chief Content Officer, discusses ten companies to watch in the APAC region. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts have identified the most interesting names from their group of high-confidence Focus Ideas. Spanning sectors and regions, each scenario outlines a catalyst in the next few months that supports BI’s case. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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[0:23] Speaker 2: One of the stocks that I followed for much of
[0:26] Speaker 2: my career has been Facebook slash Meta. This is a
[0:30] Speaker 2: stock I think potentially is facing an exidential crisis here.
[0:34] Speaker 2: Meta Platforms is facing a jury trial and federal court
[0:38] Speaker 2: overclaims that it deliberately designed Facebook and Instagram to encourage
[0:42] Speaker 2: compulsive use among young users. Is it impacting the stock,
[0:46] Speaker 2: I don't know. It's down three percent today, it's down
[0:48] Speaker 2: sixteen percent this year, and it's down twenty eight percent
[0:52] Speaker 2: of the trailing twelve months. So you can figure that out.
[0:55] Speaker 2: Only one person to talk to, and you really want
[0:57] Speaker 2: to dig in deep to Facebook. That's David Kirkpatrick, the
[1:00] Speaker 2: founder of Techomedy. He is also the author of The
[1:04] Speaker 2: Facebook Effect, The Inside Story of the company that is
[1:06] Speaker 2: connecting the World. This was published in twenty ten when
[1:10] Speaker 2: we didn't know anything about Facebook or this whole social
[1:13] Speaker 2: media stuff. So it really is a foundational book on Facebook. David,
[1:16] Speaker 2: thank you so much for joining us here. How are
[1:19] Speaker 2: you framing out this trial and the potential risk to
[1:24] Speaker 2: Meta here?
[1:26] Speaker 3: Well, thank you and great to be with you. Whether
[1:31] Speaker 3: or not it's existential is a question that I think
[1:34] Speaker 3: it's hard to answer, and I probably would lean against
[1:38] Speaker 3: thinking in those terms. But could it be a beginning
[1:43] Speaker 3: of a process that could really require substantial design changes
[1:48] Speaker 3: throughout Meta's family of products?
[1:51] Speaker 4: Yes?
[1:52] Speaker 3: Could those changes potentially impact revenue and ultimately profits, yes,
[1:57] Speaker 3: So long term this could change the way the company operates.
[2:03] Speaker 3: I doubt if the financial harms and the remedies that
[2:07] Speaker 3: will be if even if Meta loses consistently, and these
[2:11] Speaker 3: are a huge number of cases, so there could be
[2:13] Speaker 3: a lot of money. Very few companies have the kind
[2:17] Speaker 3: of money that Meta has. There's a lot of money
[2:20] Speaker 3: they can come up with to pay off fines and judgments,
[2:25] Speaker 3: and it may be multi billions. But is it going
[2:28] Speaker 3: to kill the company? Not even close. But it should
[2:33] Speaker 3: change many things about the way it operates because the
[2:37] Speaker 3: trials are basically beginning to prove that they have made
[2:42] Speaker 3: a series of very bad decisions.
[2:45] Speaker 2: It's interesting this is a bipartisan issue I noticed that
[2:49] Speaker 2: we have attorneys general from both Democratic and Republican states
[2:53] Speaker 2: are suing together. One of the very few areas of
[2:56] Speaker 2: bipartisanship out there that suggests that this runs pretty doesn't it?
[3:01] Speaker 5: Well?
[3:01] Speaker 3: It does, and these issues all center around harms to teens,
[3:06] Speaker 3: and META has lost a major case in New Mexico
[3:09] Speaker 3: where they're now been asked to pay close to a
[3:13] Speaker 3: billion dollars in fines and other relief. They also lost
[3:17] Speaker 3: a case in Los Angeles where one particular teen was
[3:22] Speaker 3: able to prove that her mental health was severely harmed
[3:25] Speaker 3: and they were ordered to pay I believe nine million.
[3:28] Speaker 6: Which is small.
[3:29] Speaker 3: But the case that's coming to trial beginning today is
[3:32] Speaker 3: the consolidation of Believe It or Not thirty one hundred cases,
[3:38] Speaker 3: and it includes cases brought by twenty nine state attorneys general,
[3:43] Speaker 3: a very large number of school districts from around the country,
[3:47] Speaker 3: a bunch of parents who alleged that their own children
[3:49] Speaker 3: were harmed, as well as some Indian tribes and Native
[3:54] Speaker 3: American tribes. And because they've lost in New Mexico and LA,
[4:00] Speaker 3: if they lose in this case, which is not at
[4:03] Speaker 3: all out of the question, it could then affect the
[4:07] Speaker 3: either judgments or potential settlements of all thirty one hundred
[4:11] Speaker 3: of those cases that are coming up in the wake
[4:14] Speaker 3: of this, because it's meant to be what's called a
[4:16] Speaker 3: Bellweather trial. The idea being that the outcome of this
[4:20] Speaker 3: case could help the plaintiffs and the defendant to decide
[4:25] Speaker 3: whether they should settle and on what basis. So maybe,
[4:28] Speaker 3: you know, if Meta loses here, they would agree to
[4:31] Speaker 3: settle a very large percentage of those thirty one hundred
[4:34] Speaker 3: other cases. And in addition to this, there's about a
[4:37] Speaker 3: thousand cases that are coming to trial in a California case.
[4:43] Speaker 3: With the Los Angeles case was a sort of tip
[4:47] Speaker 3: of the sphere of where sort of exemplary trials will
[4:52] Speaker 3: occur that could affect the settlement or disposition of those
[4:57] Speaker 3: thousand cases. So we have four thousand and plus suits
[5:01] Speaker 3: against this company for harming teams. That's a serious problem.
[5:05] Speaker 2: That is what is the companies saying about this this
[5:09] Speaker 2: legal situation for themselves.
[5:12] Speaker 3: Well, basically they feel that it's all unfair that the
[5:15] Speaker 3: plaintiffs don't have standing to sue, that they've done a
[5:18] Speaker 3: good job trying to solve these problems internally, which the
[5:21] Speaker 3: evidence is likely to show is incorrect, and they have.
[5:27] Speaker 3: You know, the problem has been historically that section two
[5:30] Speaker 3: thirty of the Communications Decency Act, which is a nineteen
[5:33] Speaker 3: nineties era law, basically exempts any kind of online service
[5:38] Speaker 3: from liability for any content that's on their service. So cleverly,
[5:43] Speaker 3: what's now happened and all these cases show is that
[5:47] Speaker 3: the lawyers have figured out they don't want to focus
[5:50] Speaker 3: on content at all. They're focusing on the design of
[5:53] Speaker 3: the services. So they're saying, the algorithms make these services addictive,
[5:58] Speaker 3: and so it doesn't no matter what the content is.
[6:01] Speaker 3: The point being that Meta was negligent in the design
[6:05] Speaker 3: of their services and did not pay attention to the
[6:08] Speaker 3: impact that that had on teenage.
[6:10] Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
[6:17] Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
[6:21] Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
[6:24] Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
[6:27] Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
[6:32] Speaker 2: Mandeep Seeing, Global head of research for Bloomberg Intelligence, what
[6:35] Speaker 2: do you want to talk about today? I mean, I
[6:36] Speaker 2: got a million things. How about that anthropic annualized revenue
[6:39] Speaker 2: top sixty five billion dollars. I mean, what do you
[6:43] Speaker 2: make of that? How do you put that into context?
[6:46] Speaker 5: I mean, this company has grown revenue fourteen x, you know,
[6:50] Speaker 5: or the space of the last twelve months, So clearly
[6:53] Speaker 5: they have a lot going right for them. I mean
[6:57] Speaker 5: the one thing I would put a caveat on here
[7:00] Speaker 5: is we have seen open source models really narrow the gap.
[7:05] Speaker 5: So even though Nthropics numbers look stellar here, I feel
[7:11] Speaker 5: like everyone right now is looking to deploy AI but
[7:15] Speaker 5: not use the frontier models. And we just saw some
[7:19] Speaker 5: news around open ai cutting their prices for tokens, So
[7:24] Speaker 5: it feels like now we are at a point where
[7:28] Speaker 5: everyone wants to undercut each other to make sure they
[7:32] Speaker 5: have the market share in terms of the frontier models.
[7:36] Speaker 5: And that may be that kind of catalyst to slow
[7:41] Speaker 5: things down for Entropic, But they've executed very well and
[7:46] Speaker 5: the numbers are just a reflection of that.
[7:48] Speaker 7: So you don't see that dynamic evident in the latest number, So.
[7:52] Speaker 5: Do you no? I think so far the frontier models
[7:56] Speaker 5: had a clear lead and people were willing to pay
[7:59] Speaker 5: for the frontier models because.
[8:01] Speaker 2: A frontchier model is like Claude chat GPT, Claude.
[8:06] Speaker 5: Jet chatchipt over Gemini or the open source models because
[8:10] Speaker 5: there was a clear gap and everyone was willing to
[8:13] Speaker 5: pay whatever Anthropic was asking them to pay in terms
[8:18] Speaker 5: of token pricing, they were willing to pay. But now
[8:21] Speaker 5: with open source models closing that gap, and now there
[8:24] Speaker 5: are a lot of routing companies that help you use
[8:27] Speaker 5: the most appropriate model relevant to the query, so you
[8:32] Speaker 5: don't end up using the most expensive model, but the
[8:35] Speaker 5: model that is appropriate for the query that you have.
[8:38] Speaker 7: Speaking of models that are appropriate, open ai is launching
[8:41] Speaker 7: a chat GPT for teens, Yeah, which is a version
[8:44] Speaker 7: of its chatbot aimed at children age thirteen to seventeen,
[8:47] Speaker 7: encouraging safe usage and deeper learning.
[8:49] Speaker 5: Is that possible, well, I mean all these models have
[8:54] Speaker 5: problems with putting guardrails. That's why you know, MYTOS was
[8:57] Speaker 5: never released to the public. The US government said they
[9:01] Speaker 5: need to be approved before you know it was broadly released.
[9:05] Speaker 5: And I feel like even now, whatever guardrails you have
[9:10] Speaker 5: in place can be jailbroken, and you know, people can
[9:13] Speaker 5: get around it, which is why these models have capabilities. Yeah,
[9:18] Speaker 5: you can say this is more fourteens and We've put
[9:21] Speaker 5: the guardrails around it, but I doubt it can be perfect.
[9:26] Speaker 5: And you know, that's where these companies have to do
[9:28] Speaker 5: the PRPCE in terms of making sure you know, they're
[9:31] Speaker 5: not being misused.
[9:32] Speaker 2: All right, Switching gears back thirty seconds left. I'm concerned
[9:36] Speaker 2: for this social media trial for met oh yes, should
[9:38] Speaker 2: it be?
[9:40] Speaker 3: Yes?
[9:41] Speaker 5: And more and more we are seeing every jurisdiction kind
[9:44] Speaker 5: of either banning, you know, usage for under sixteen or
[9:50] Speaker 5: that kind of demographic. And so from that perspective, these
[9:53] Speaker 5: companies have a pr problem, but now it's really kind
[9:57] Speaker 5: of getting reflected and all sorts of trials that they're
[10:00] Speaker 5: going through.
[10:01] Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
[10:09] Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
[10:13] Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
[10:16] Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
[10:19] Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
[10:24] Speaker 7: We're looking at market that is declining, the third straight
[10:28] Speaker 7: day of losses for the S and P five hundred.
[10:30] Speaker 7: It is still very much earning season. The retailers have
[10:32] Speaker 7: just begun announcing and we got the latest results out
[10:35] Speaker 7: of Home Depot. The stock is up by about one
[10:38] Speaker 7: and a half percent this morning after its latest results
[10:41] Speaker 7: of beat estimates, in a sign perhaps that spending on
[10:44] Speaker 7: home improvement continues to hold up. Let's bring in Lindsay Dutch.
[10:47] Speaker 7: She is our consumer hardlines senior analysts here at Bloomberg
[10:50] Speaker 7: Intelligence to talk a little bit more about Home Depot
[10:53] Speaker 7: and Lindsay, Home Depot has really put a lot of
[10:56] Speaker 7: emphasis on the professional contractors and moving in that direction,
[11:00] Speaker 7: counting on them for a lot of the growth. What
[11:03] Speaker 7: did we learn from Home Depot this past quarter when
[11:05] Speaker 7: it comes to professional contractors versus DIY homeowners.
[11:10] Speaker 8: Hi Scarlett, Hi Paul, thanks for having me so. I
[11:14] Speaker 8: think that the second quarter beat was really more on
[11:17] Speaker 8: the consumer side than the pro side. But you're absolutely
[11:21] Speaker 8: right that the pros are becoming a more and more
[11:24] Speaker 8: important piece of the business for Home Depot. They want
[11:27] Speaker 8: to sort of that customer better. They think that growth
[11:29] Speaker 8: going forward is better. That is a seven hundred billion
[11:32] Speaker 8: dollar addressable market, a huge market growing very quickly, so
[11:37] Speaker 8: the pro remains important. Pro spending is solid. You know,
[11:40] Speaker 8: they still have same expectations for SRS, which is an
[11:44] Speaker 8: acquisition that they made you know, this year grow mid
[11:47] Speaker 8: single digits organically, but two Q was really about the DIY.
[11:51] Speaker 4: Consumer first half.
[11:53] Speaker 2: I mean, that top line of five percent looks pretty
[11:55] Speaker 2: good to me, and it looks like they're guidance I'm
[11:58] Speaker 2: reading it right, it's looking for slower growth in the
[12:00] Speaker 2: second half.
[12:00] Speaker 4: What's what are they saying about that?
[12:03] Speaker 8: Yeah, that's right. So the top line, you know, there's
[12:06] Speaker 8: some acquisitions in there that's sort of helping that top
[12:08] Speaker 8: line exceed organic growth. Same source sales though one point
[12:12] Speaker 8: seven percent, the best in a couple of years. That
[12:15] Speaker 8: was really driven. You know, Canada was strong, Mexico was strong,
[12:18] Speaker 8: but the US even put up a one point three percent,
[12:22] Speaker 8: and it seemed like, you know, some of their spring
[12:24] Speaker 8: assortment did very well, big ticket items think grills, patio furniture,
[12:29] Speaker 8: gardening items. It seems that they did pretty well in
[12:32] Speaker 8: the quarter. Same sore sales were building. June stronger than May,
[12:36] Speaker 8: July stronger than June. So pretty solid. But then there's
[12:41] Speaker 8: a lot of caution, as you mentioned, Paul, when we
[12:43] Speaker 8: look at the outlook, that back half looks like there
[12:47] Speaker 8: could be, you know, a pullback, and I think there's
[12:49] Speaker 8: some caution uncertainty about that consumer demand coming out of
[12:54] Speaker 8: this spring summer season.
[12:57] Speaker 7: Home People also has some I don't want to say
[13:01] Speaker 7: leadership changes, but there's going to be there's some leadership
[13:03] Speaker 7: disruption happening. Do you anticipate there to be any shift
[13:08] Speaker 7: in its ability to execute what it has, you know,
[13:11] Speaker 7: laid out as its strategy with the CEO Ted Decker
[13:14] Speaker 7: taking some leave.
[13:16] Speaker 8: Yeah, so it's temporary medical leave. The strategy is still
[13:19] Speaker 8: in place, you know. Every the leadership team seems very
[13:22] Speaker 8: focused on executing all of the goals that they laid
[13:25] Speaker 8: out at a December investor day, and I expect them
[13:29] Speaker 8: to continue along their path again, mostly focused on gaining
[13:32] Speaker 8: shares with pros, but also being there for the consumer
[13:36] Speaker 8: and really trying to drive growth even in a market
[13:38] Speaker 8: where we have very low housing turnover and we just
[13:41] Speaker 8: don't know when that the rebound in that housing market
[13:44] Speaker 8: is going to come.
[13:45] Speaker 4: Did you talk to us about terriffs?
[13:47] Speaker 2: Because when I walk into a home depot, which is
[13:50] Speaker 2: not very often by the way, because I might chuck
[13:52] Speaker 2: you that I am not a handyman, I am shocked
[13:55] Speaker 2: by like the amount of plywood.
[13:57] Speaker 4: That have to stack up there.
[13:58] Speaker 2: And whenever I see that now, I think of I'm
[14:00] Speaker 2: guessing a lot of that comes from Canada and is
[14:02] Speaker 2: that being tariff to Where are what's.
[14:04] Speaker 4: Home people doing about tariff c stage? What do they sing?
[14:07] Speaker 7: Yeah?
[14:07] Speaker 8: So they they had filed a claim. We knew that
[14:10] Speaker 8: ahead of earnings, you know, I think there there was
[14:12] Speaker 8: some expectation that there would be some refunds in the quarter.
[14:16] Speaker 8: They got refunds in late June. There cost of good
[14:20] Speaker 8: scolds was dropped by six hundred and eighty five million dollars,
[14:23] Speaker 8: you know, so significant benefit to profitability in the second quarter.
[14:27] Speaker 8: There will be some benefit in the third quarter as well,
[14:30] Speaker 8: though probably a little bit less than what we just saw.
[14:34] Speaker 8: And then by fourth quarter that benefit is really gonna
[14:37] Speaker 8: kind of roll off in terms of the refund, in
[14:40] Speaker 8: terms of terwish generally, you know, costs are still rising
[14:44] Speaker 8: going into the back half of the year, so by
[14:48] Speaker 8: fourth quarter gross margins expected to be flat, and then
[14:50] Speaker 8: we could start to see pressure again, you know, into
[14:54] Speaker 8: next year, just due to those rising costs.
[14:58] Speaker 7: Low's, which is a small or a competitor to Home Depot,
[15:01] Speaker 7: those shares are up two point one percent. That company,
[15:03] Speaker 7: of course is going to report earnings tomorrow before the
[15:07] Speaker 7: opening bell. What do Home Depot's results spell out for Lows?
[15:10] Speaker 7: I mean, is it going to be one for one
[15:12] Speaker 7: where we see this kind of execution at Home Depot,
[15:15] Speaker 7: we assume that Low's is going to do that as well.
[15:18] Speaker 8: So I think there was definitely some encouraging signs coming
[15:21] Speaker 8: out of the Home Depot results. You know, Lows had
[15:24] Speaker 8: high expectations for the second quarter, also expecting sort of
[15:28] Speaker 8: a sequential improvement from the first quarter, which is what
[15:31] Speaker 8: Home Depot saw, and a lot of that was you know,
[15:34] Speaker 8: baked into some of the spring and summer sales events
[15:37] Speaker 8: that they have, you know, they kind of stand out
[15:39] Speaker 8: and some of those bigger ticket items that did really well,
[15:42] Speaker 8: you know, according to Home Depot's results. So I think
[15:44] Speaker 8: there is some positive signals. You know that Low's a
[15:48] Speaker 8: can achieve the sequential acceleration in same store sales that
[15:52] Speaker 8: they were expecting, and b that their sales events, you
[15:56] Speaker 8: know that was really matter to the quarter, you know,
[15:59] Speaker 8: could prove successful if consumers were truly going out there
[16:04] Speaker 8: and spending a little bit on the summer on bigger
[16:06] Speaker 8: ticket items.
[16:07] Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
[16:14] Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
[16:18] Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
[16:21] Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
[16:24] Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
[16:29] Speaker 2: All right, let's switch gears to some stock ideas, some
[16:32] Speaker 2: investment ideas, some companies to watch, and for that return
[16:36] Speaker 2: to Tim Craik at Global Chief Content Officer for Bloomberg Intelligence.
[16:39] Speaker 2: He's based in London here and Tim, you guys have
[16:43] Speaker 2: had this Companies to watch series of research reports for.
[16:47] Speaker 4: Quite some time now.
[16:48] Speaker 2: Now you guys are turning your attention to ashpecific. Talk
[16:52] Speaker 2: to us about kind of how you put this list
[16:55] Speaker 2: together for companies in a fast growing part of the world,
[16:58] Speaker 2: Asia Pacific.
[16:59] Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure, Thanks for having me on as always,
[17:03] Speaker 6: so you're right, this is part of an ongoing series.
[17:06] Speaker 6: We do fifty companies to watch for the year ahead,
[17:09] Speaker 6: which is global, ten companies to watch each quarter. We'll
[17:12] Speaker 6: be coming back to you in another month or so
[17:15] Speaker 6: with that, which is also global. But Asia is gaining intrigue,
[17:21] Speaker 6: whether it's the Asian markets in Southeast Asia, or what's
[17:26] Speaker 6: going on in China or Japan, et cetera. And with
[17:31] Speaker 6: that in mind, there was an opportunity to think, well,
[17:34] Speaker 6: what's interesting for the rest of this half that's Asia specific.
[17:38] Speaker 6: And as always, we base these ideas off of our
[17:43] Speaker 6: focus ideas, which are companies where we've got a high
[17:46] Speaker 6: conviction fundamental view and we see catalysts ahead that can
[17:51] Speaker 6: bring the market around to what we think is likely
[17:55] Speaker 6: to happen. So that's really the crux of this. So
[17:58] Speaker 6: it's kind of.
[17:58] Speaker 2: Cool Ai has a theme here coming out of that
[18:02] Speaker 2: part of the world, Asia Pacific. Any TNT ideas kind
[18:05] Speaker 2: of hit your list.
[18:07] Speaker 4: Yeah, so there there are a couple.
[18:09] Speaker 6: One actually, interestingly on the negative side is z dot
[18:16] Speaker 6: Ai or Zippoo as it's called in China. Yeah, this
[18:22] Speaker 6: is a this is a cautious idea, and yeah, I
[18:24] Speaker 6: should have mentioned up front. You know, there's several of
[18:26] Speaker 6: these ideas that are on the cautionary side of things
[18:30] Speaker 6: as opposed to just being gung ho, you know positive.
[18:33] Speaker 6: And you know, the Chinese companies are gaining steam in
[18:39] Speaker 6: terms of UH speed and performance. You know, there's been
[18:42] Speaker 6: any number of recent announcements, one from you know, you'll
[18:46] Speaker 6: remember Moonshot with Kimny three that you know was was
[18:50] Speaker 6: you know, broaching the same competition, the same competitive dynamic
[18:54] Speaker 6: as some of the big US lll ms, zip Poo
[18:58] Speaker 6: has really good performance, but they're just beating each other
[19:03] Speaker 6: up on competition, and so it's almost like the better
[19:06] Speaker 6: they do and the more business they do, the higher
[19:08] Speaker 6: the call star. And we think that they're in a
[19:12] Speaker 6: profit spiral on an ongoing basis and it's really hard
[19:15] Speaker 6: to get out of it by the same token, you know.
[19:18] Speaker 6: The telecom business broadly speaking across Asia is doing well.
[19:22] Speaker 6: We've talked about Malaysia Telecom before as a as an
[19:26] Speaker 6: infrastructure build out play for AI. Star Hub is a
[19:30] Speaker 6: telecom company based in Singapore that is seeing better traffic
[19:35] Speaker 6: and they've had some competitive dynamics locally that we think
[19:39] Speaker 6: are calming down, so rice competition is getting better for them.
[19:43] Speaker 4: So there's a couple of.
[19:46] Speaker 6: TM team names. I'd also say also in Singapore, c
[19:51] Speaker 6: which is one of the big e commerce companies. It
[19:54] Speaker 6: actually trades in the US, so it's se you know,
[19:57] Speaker 6: on the New York Stock Exchange. They have their big
[20:02] Speaker 6: business is called Shoppy, which is one of the biggest
[20:04] Speaker 6: e commerce platforms in Asia and going back to your
[20:09] Speaker 6: old stomping grounds, Paul. This is all about advertising. They're
[20:13] Speaker 6: getting more and more advertising business coming through, which is
[20:16] Speaker 6: driving profits for SE which we think are underappreciated.
[20:20] Speaker 4: Got two automakers from Japan. What's the story there.
[20:24] Speaker 6: Yeah, that's kind of a strange thing to pick both
[20:26] Speaker 6: Toyota and Honda at the same time, but they got
[20:32] Speaker 6: they're very different dynamics. Honda gets more than forty percent
[20:37] Speaker 6: of their business in the US. They have made a
[20:39] Speaker 6: massive push to go EV and we know where that
[20:44] Speaker 6: dynamic stands, especially in the US market. Actually, also in Japan,
[20:49] Speaker 6: they're not big on evs. They're big on hybrids and
[20:53] Speaker 6: gasoline engines. So Honda is basically backpedaled big time, and
[21:00] Speaker 6: it's effectively a restructuring story, refocusing on their core hybrid
[21:06] Speaker 6: business and combustion engine along with a really big motorcycle business,
[21:11] Speaker 6: which you can appreciate that kind of is below the
[21:15] Speaker 6: radar street. Toyota has had a different strategy. It's their
[21:19] Speaker 6: sort of multi pathway. So in Japan it's hybrids, in
[21:24] Speaker 6: China it's evs. In the US and Europe it's both
[21:28] Speaker 6: and they've been really successful and we think there are
[21:31] Speaker 6: big product launches coming ahead will continue to drive growth.
[21:34] Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
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