Key events
Europe’s stock markets have opened higher on Wednesday.
London’s FTSE 100 has been boosted by the mining contingent and HSBC – more on both of those to come shortly.
Here are the opening snaps, via Reuters:
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EUROPE’S STOXX 600 UP 0.6%
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BRITAIN’S FTSE 100 UP 0.9%
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FRANCE’S CAC 40 UP 1.3%; SPAIN’S IBEX FLAT
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EURO STOXX INDEX UP 0.5%; EURO ZONE BLUE CHIPS UP 0.5%
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GERMANY’S DAX UP 0.5%
Young Brits abandon broadcast TV; Samsung expects strong AI chip demand
Good morning, and welcome to our live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets.
Only 48% of British young people watch broadcast television in an average week, the first time that the share has dropped below half, according to new data from regulator Ofcom.
The proportion of those between 16 and 24 years old who tuned into traditional broadcasters has dropped steeply from 76% in 2018, as the use of online video sharing platforms like TikTok and YouTube has surged. Those young people who do watch TV spend 33 minutes a day on it, compared with an average of 1 hour 33 minutes on video-sharing apps and websites – albeit often accessed through the TV.
Children aged between 4 and 15 are also shifting away from broadcast television rapidly. Only 55% watch broadcast TV each week in 2023, compared to 81% in 2018.
The division between different generations’ habits is stark, if not perhaps that surprising: 95% of the over-65s still watch television every week.
Yet overall numbers of viewers of traditional broadcast media have been falling across the generations for several years.
Ian Macrae, Ofcom’s director of market intelligence, said:
Gen Z and Alpha are used to swiping and streaming, not flipping through broadcast TV channels. They crave the flexibility, immediacy and choice that on-demand services offer, spending over three hours a day watching video, but only 20 minutes of live TV. It’s no surprise that the traditional TV is fast becoming a device of choice to watch YouTube.
But while live TV may not have the universal pull it once did, its role in capturing those big moments that bring the nation together remains vital.
The Olympics fortnight is a good time to be making that point. And another sporting event was the biggest of the year so far: the BBC and ITV together averaged 15.1m viewers for the UEFA Euro 2024 men’s final between England and Spain.
Samsung expects strong demand for chips
Who is making the devices used to stream video? One of the most prominent is Samsung. The Korean technology manufacturer has reported a strong rise in profits – although it said that demand for chips for artificial intelligence was a big factor.
Samsung’s profits rose fifteen-fold in the second quarter compared with last year. Operating profit rose to 10.4tn won (£5.8bn) in April-June, up from 670bn won a year earlier, Samsung said.
The company is the world’s largest manufacturer of smartphones, televisions and memory chips. It is the latter that has been behind its recent profit surge – although it is also counting on increased AI features to sell more of its top-end phones.
Share prices of companies with links to artificial intelligence have boomed in recent years as investors try to work out who the big winners will be. Top among those companies have been the chip manufacturers and designers, although some of the enthusiasm appears to have waned in recent weeks. Nvidia, the biggest beneficiary, has fallen by 20% from its peak as something of a bubble has appeared to burst.
Samsung, though, is still positive about AI demand. It said:
In the second half of 2024, AI servers are expected to take up a larger portion of the (memory) market as major cloud service providers and enterprises expand their AI investments.
The agenda
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10am BST: Eurozone inflation rate (July; previous: 2.5%; consensus: 2.4%)
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1:15pm BST: US ADP employment change (July; prev.: 150,000; cons.: 150,000)