Aspire raises $32.5M to help SMEs secure fast finance in Southeast Asia

Aspire, a Singapore-based startup that helps SMEs secure working capital, has raised $32.5 million in a new financing round to expand its presence in several Southeast Asian markets.

The Series A round for the one-and-a-half-year-old startup was funded by MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia. Arc Labs and existing investors Y Combinator — Aspire graduated from YC last year — Hummingbird and Picus Capital also participated in the round. Aspire has raised about $41.5 million to date.

Aspire operates a neo-banking-like platform to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) quickly and easily secure working capital of up to about $70,000. AspireAccount, the startup’s flagship product, provides merchants and startups with instant credit limit for daily business expenses, as well as a business-to-business acceptance and other tools to help them manage their cash flow.

Co-founder and CEO Andrea Baronchelli tells TechCrunch that about 1,000 business accounts are opened each month on Aspire and that the company plans to continue focusing on Southeast Asia, where he says there are about 78 million small businesses, leaving plenty of room to scale (applications can be made through Aspire’s mobile app and are reviewed using a proprietary risk assessment engine before getting final approval from a human). Aspire claims it has seen 30% month-over-month growth since it was founded in January 2018 and expects to open more than 100,000 business accounts by next year.

Baronchelli, who served as a CMO for Alibaba’s Lazada platform for four years, says Aspire launched to close the gap left by the traditional banking industry’s focus on consumer services or businesses that make more than $10 million in revenue a year. As a result, smaller businesses in Southeast Asia, including online vendors and startups, often lack access to credit lines, accounts and other financial services tailored to their needs.

Aspire currently operates in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. The startup said it will use the fresh capital to scale its footprints in those markets. Additionally, Aspire is building a scalable marketplace banking infrastructure that will use third-party financial service providers to “create a unique digital banking experience for its SME customers.”

Baronchelli adds that “the bank of the future will probably be a marketplace,” so Aspire’s goal is to provide a place where SMEs can not only open accounts and credit cards, but also pick from different services like point of sale systems. It is currently in talks with potential partners. The startup is also working on a business credit card that will be linked to each business account by as early as this year.

Southeast Asia’s digital economy is slated to grow more than six-fold to reach more than $200 billion per year, according to a report co-authored by Google. But for many emerging startups and businesses, getting financial services from a bank and securing working capital have become major pain points.

A growing number of startups are beginning to address these SMEs’ needs. In India, for instance, NiYo Bank and Open have amassed millions of businesses through their neo-banking platforms. Both of these startups have raised tens of millions of dollars in recent months. Drip Capital, which helps businesses in developing markets secure working capital, raised $25 million last week.

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Luna Labs creates playable ads, directly from Unity

It seems obvious that the best way to advertise a game is to let people play the game itself — and we’ve covered other startups tackling this problem, such as AppOnboard and mNectar.

But Luna Labs co-founder and CEO Steven Chard said that for most developers, the creation of these ads involves outsourcing: “It might take weeks to make an ad, and the quality of the content at the end could be limited.”

The problem, Chard said, is that most games are built on the Unity engine, while the ads need to be in HTML5, which means that developers often have to build playable ads from scratch — hence the outsourcing.

“There’s this huge demand for playables, but the tech hasn’t caught up with it,” he said. “Our view — and I think why it’s really resonating with developers — we’re saying to developers: Use that same [Unity] editor to create a playable ad. You’re going to give the user a playable ad which genuinely feels like the game.”

In fact, while Luna is officially launching its service to developers this week, it’s already been working with a few partners like Kwalee and Voodoo. Luna says that in Kwalee’s case, the results were good enough that the company spent 60% more than they did on other playable ads, and the Luna playables drove more than 250,000 installs per day.

“Luna is solving a real pain point for our studio, and the initial results have been tremendous,” said Kwalee COO Jason Falcus in a statement. “Integrating the Luna service has allowed us to significantly scale our campaigns by a comfortable margin, to the best results so far.”

Luna’s investors include Ben Holmes (formerly of Index Ventures, backer of King and Playfish) and Chris Lee (who also invested in Space Ape and Hello Games).

Chard said the startup is currently focused on providing tools to developers, rather than getting involved in the ad-buying process. More generally, he said the company has been focused on the technology rather than the business model.

“We’re an early company with a very, very complex piece of technology — it’s taken a lot of time to get where we are,” he said. “We’re not doing it for free, but the focus isn’t on short-term profitability. It is, in the longer term, on creating a scalable product which can be used by developers.”

Chard added that eventually, he’s hoping Luna can become more involved in “at the content creation level.” For example, he suggested that developers could use the technology to test out playable concepts and see what resonates, before building a full game.

You can test it out for yourself on the Luna Labs website.

Google is launching playable in-game ads

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Verizon adds Washington DC, Atlanta, Detroit and Indianapolis to list of 5G cities

This morning Verizon (TechCrunch’s parent company) flipped the 5G switch on four additional cities. Washington DC, Atlanta, Detroit and Indianapolis join Chicago, Denver, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Providence in getting coverage for the carrier’s growing next-generation network.

All of the usual caveats apply here. While the list of cities continues to grow, coverage varies from city to city to such a point where Verizon currently includes specific neighborhoods in these announcements. Here’s the break down,

In Washington DC, consumers, businesses and government agencies can initially access Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband service in areas of Foggy Bottom, Dupont Circle, Cardozo / U Street, Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, Le Droit Park, Georgetown Waterfront, Judiciary Square, Shaw, Eckington, NOMA, National Mall and the Smithsonian, Gallery Place / Chinatown, Mt. Vernon Square, Downtown, Penn Quarter, Brentwood, Southwest Waterfront, Navy Yard, and nearby Crystal City, VA, as well as around landmarks such as the Ronald Reagan National Airport, United States Botanical Gardens, Hart Senate Building, National Gallery of Art, Lafayette Square, The White House, Freedom Plaza, Farragut Square, George Washington University, Capital One Arena, Union Station, Howard University Hospital, George Washington University Hospital, and Georgetown Waterfront Park.

In Atlanta, 5G Ultra Wideband service will initially be concentrated in parts of the following neighborhoods: Downtown, Midtown, Tech Square, and around such landmarks as The Fox Theater, Emory University Hospital Midtown, Mercedes Benz Stadium, Home Depot Backyard, Centennial Olympic Park, Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca Cola, and parts of Renaissance Park.

In Detroit, 5G Ultra Wideband service will initially be concentrated in parts of the following areas: Dearborn, Livonia, and Troy, including areas around the Oakland-Troy Airport.

In Indianapolis, 5G Ultra Wideband service is initially available in parts of the following neighborhoods, Arsenal Heights, Bates Hendricks, Castleton, Crown Hill, Fountain Square, Grace Tuxedo Park, Hawthorne, Historic Meridian Park, Lockerbie Square, Ransom Place, Renaissance Place, St. Joseph Historic Neighborhood, Upper Canal and Woodruff Place and around such landmarks and public spaces as Garfield Park, and Indiana University School of Medicine.

The carrier adds that service will be expanded within the above cities “in the months to come.” But hey, the White House is covered, which means even more rapid tweet storms. Verizon is adding a bunch more cities by the end of the year, including Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Des Moines, Houston, Kansas City, Little Rock, Memphis, Phoenix, San Diego and Salt Lake City.

That will bring the total up to 30 for 2019.

The device selection is still limited, too for the moment. Verizon currently offers the LG V50 ThinQ 5G, Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and the Moto Z, which has an option 5G mod. There’s a 5G MiFi from Inseego available, as well.

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Snapchat launches ‘instant’ tool for creating vertical ads

Snapchat is hoping to attract new advertisers (and make advertising easier for the ones already on the platform) with the launch of a new tool called Instant Create.

Some of these potential advertisers may not be used to creating ads in the smartphone-friendly vertical format that Snapchat has popularized, so Instant Create is to designed to make the process as simple as possible.

Executives at parent organization Snap discussed the tool during last week’s earnings call (in which the company reported that its daily active users increased to 203 million).

“Just this month we started testing our new Instant Create on-boarding flow, which generates ads for businesses in three simple steps from their existing assets, be it their app or their ecommerce storefront,” said CEO Evan Spiegel.

Now the product is moving from testing to availability for all advertisers using Snapchat’s self-serve Ads Manager.

Those three steps that Spiegel mentioned involve identifying the objective of a campaign (website visits, app installs or app visits), entering you website address and finalizing you audience targeting.

You can upload your creative assets if you want, but that’s not required since Instant Create will also import images from your website. And Snap notes that you won’t need to do any real design work, because there’s “a streamlined ad creation flow that leverages our most popular templates and simplified ad detail options, enabling you to publish engaging creative without additional design resources.”

The goal is to make Snapchat advertisers accessible to smaller advertisers who may not have the time or resources to try to understand new ad formats. After all, on that same earnings call, Chief Business Officer Jeremi Gorman said, “We believe the single biggest driver for our revenue in the short to medium term will be increasing the number of active advertisers using Snapchat.”

Instant Create is currently focused Snapchat’s main ad format, Snap Ads. You can read more in the company’s blog post.

Snapchat announces new shows from Serena Williams, Arnold Schwarzenegger and others

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LG’s smartphone sales dropped another 21%

Let’s start with the good news. LG actually had a pretty good quarter (on the strength of appliance sales). The LG Home Appliance & Air Solution division made $5.23 billion for Q2. Anyone who’s been following the company for the past several years can guess where the bad news comes.

Smartphone sales dipped 21.3% year over year for the South Korean company. The culprits are as you’d expect: an overall slowing of the smartphone market, coupled with aggressive undercutting from Chinese manufacturers. Huawei seems to lead the pack on that front, with a big increase in sales, in spite of a confluence of external factors.

LG Mobile’s losses continue but now sales are falling too

The smartphone unit saw an operating loss of $268.4 million, in spite of a 6.8% increase in sales from the quarter prior. LG chalks up the loss to higher marketing on new models and April’s move from Seoul to Vietnam for smartphone production for longer-term cost cutting.

LG gets a 5G flagship, making the world’s longest phone name even longer

In spite of this, the company says it’s still bullish about smartphone sales for Q3. “The introduction of competitive mass-tier smartphones and growing demand for 5G products are expected to contribute to improved performance in the third quarter,” it writes in an earnings release.

LG is, of course, among the first companies to release a 5G handset, with the V50 ThinQ. The next-gen wireless technology is expected to increase stagnating global smartphone sales, though much of that will depend on the speed with which carriers are able to roll it out. It seems unlikely that 5G in and of itself will be a quick or even longer-term fix for a struggling category.

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What Huawei didn’t say in its ‘robust’ half-year results

Mobile messaging financial advisory service Stackin’ adds banking features and raises cash

When Stackin’ initially pitched itself as part of the Techstars Los Angeles accelerator program two years ago, the company was a video platform for financial advice targeting a millennial audience too savvy for traditional advisory services.

Now, nearly two years later, the company has pivoted from video to text-based financial advice for its millennial audience and is offering a new spin on lead generation for digital banks.

The company has launched a new, no-fee, checking and savings account feature in partnership with Radius Bank, which offers users a 1% annual percentage yield on deposits.

And Stackin’ has raised $4 million in new cash from Experian Ventures, Dig Ventures and Cherry Tree Investments, along with supplemental commitments from new and previous investors including Social Leverage, Wavemaker Partners and Mucker Capital.

“Stackin’ has a unique and highly effective approach to connect and communicate with an entire generation of younger consumers around finance,” said Ty Taylor, group president of Global Consumer Services at Experian, in a statement.

Founded two years ago by Scott Grimes, the former founder of Uproxx Media, and Kyle Arbaugh, who served as a senior vice president at Uproxx, Stackin’ initially billed itself as the Uproxx of personal finance.

It turns out that consumers didn’t want another video platform.

“Stackin’ is fundamentally changing the shape and context of what a financial relationship means by creating a fun, inclusive and judgement free environment that empowers our users to learn and take action through messaging,” said Scott Grimes, CEO and co-founder of Stackin’, in a statement. “This funding allows us to build out new features around banking and investing that will enhance the relationship with our customers.”

Later this fall the company said it would launch a new investment feature that will encourage Stackin’ users to participate in the stock market. It’s likely that this feature will look something like the Acorns model, which encourages users to invest in diversified financial vehicles to get them acquainted with the stock market before enabling individual trades on stocks.

According to Grimes, the company made the switch from video to text in March 2018 and built a custom messaging platform on Twilio to service the company’s 500,000 users.

“In a short time, we have built a large customer base with a demographic that is typically hard to reach. Having financial institutions like Experian come on board as an investor is a testament that this model is working,” Grimes wrote in an email.

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Huawei is shipping a lot more phones in spite of it all

There are a lot reasons to assume Huawei’s numbers would be on the decline. Even without getting caught smack in the middle of increasing trade tensions between two superpowers, the smartphone market has been trending down for some time now. A confluence of factors, including slowed upgrade cycles and stagnate economies in both China and abroad have contributed.

The market continues to “soften” in China as early adopters await the launch of 5G before jumping on with new handset. In spite of everything, however, Huawei appears to be the one company currently bucking the trend. And not just by a little bit, either. New numbers from Canalys put the company at a 31 percent year on year grown for the second quarter — a stark contrast to the six percent global decline for the category.

The company shipped 37.3 million handsets for Q2, with China accounting for 64 percent of that number. Unsurprisingly, its home market has become an increasingly important sales driver as trade blacklists and the like have barred in from sales in some overseas markets.

An interesting, if unsurprising factor in that growth is a kind of hometown pride for the embattled brand, which sported a 38 percent market share for the quarter.

“[T]he US-China trade war is also creating new opportunities. Huawei’s retail partners are rolling out advertisements to link Huawei with being the patriotic choice, to appeal to a growing demographic of Chinese consumers willing to take political factors into account when making a purchase decision,” Canalys’ Mo Jia said in a release tied to the news. “Huawei itself has also been eager to give more exposure to its founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, to enhance its brand appeal to local consumers. At the same time, Huawei’s internal chipset and modem technologies will give it an edge over its competitors as 5G is commercialized by Chinese operators.”

That last bit means that Huawei will almost certainly see more growth in the coming years as 5G begins to roll out in China, starting this fall. This is, of course, as long as a ban on the use of American software and components don’t hamper the company entirely in the meantime.

Huawei was cautiously optimistic reporting its quarterly earnings this week. “Given the foundation we laid in the first half of the year, we continue to see growth even after we were added to the entity list,” Chairman Liang Hua said on a call. “That’s not to say we don’t have difficulties ahead. We do, and they may affect the pace of our growth in the short term.”

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China’s Vivo is eyeing smartphone users in Africa and Middle East

Google’s Pixel 4 smartphone will have motion control and face unlock

Google’s Pixel 4 is coming out later this year, and it’s getting the long-reveal treatment thanks to a decision this year from Google to go ahead and spill some of the beans early, rather than saving everything for one big, final unveiling closer to availability. A new video posted by Google today about the forthcoming Pixel 4 (which likely won’t actually be available until fall) shows off some features new to this generation: Motion control and face unlock.

The new “Motion Sense” feature in the Pixel 4 will detect waves of your hand and translate them into software control, including skipping songs, snoozing alarms and quieting incoming phone call alerts, with more planned features to come, according to Google. It’s based on Soli, a radar-based fine motion detection technology that Google first revealed at its I/O annual developer conference in 2016. Soli can detect very fine movements, including fingers pinched together to mimic a watch-winding motion, and it got approval from the FCC in January, hinting it would finally be arriving in production devices this year.

Pixel 4 is the first shipping device to include Soli, and Google says it’ll be available in “select Pixel countries” at launch (probably due to similar approvals requirements wherever it rolls out to consumers).

Google also teased “Face unlock,” something it has supported in Android previously — but Google is doing it very differently with the Pixel 4 than it has been handled on Android in the past. Once again, Soli is part of its implementation, turning on the face unlock sensors in the device as it detects your hand reaching to pick up the device. Google says this should mean that the phone will be unlocked by the time you’re ready to use it, as it does this all on the fly, and works from pretty much any authentication.

Face unlock will be supported for authorizing payments and logging into Android apps, as well, and all of the facial recognition processing done for face unlock will occur on the device — a privacy-oriented feature that’s similar to how Apple handles its own Face ID. In fact, Google also will be storing all the facial recognition data securely in its own dedicated on-device Titan M security chip, another move similar to Apple’s own approach.

Google made the Pixel 4 official and tweeted photos (or maybe photorealistic renders) of the new smartphone back in June, bucking the trend of keeping things unconfirmed until an official reveal closer to release. Based on this update, it seems likely we can expect to learn more about the new smartphone ahead of its availability, which is probably going to happen sometime around October, based on past behavior.

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Huawei’s first 5G phone goes on sale in China next month

Huawei on Friday announced the upcoming release of its first 5G handset in its home market. Following on the heels of its UK debut, the Mate 20 X is currently up for pre-order, with an expected China arrival of August 16.

The handset beats the foldable Mate X to market, in spite of that handset having made its debut way back at Mobile World Congress in February. Of course, companies are understandably cautious about foldable in the wake of the mess with the Samsung Galaxy Fold, which finally got an approximate release date last week.

China Mobile flipped the switch on its Huawei-powered 5G transport network late last month, with commercial rollout expected to begin in October. In June, China Telecom and China Unicom were also granted licenses to operate commercial 5G networks, after some delay. Last week, ZTE’s Axon 10 Pro 5G went up for presale in its native China, as well.

Huawei is bringing 5G to the Mate 20 X

Until rollout begins, those purchasing 5G handsets will have to rely on older networks like the rest of us, putting the U.S. and China in similar boats on that front. Of course, security concerns have put both Huawei and ZTE in the crosshairs internationally, particularly North America.

Huawei has reportedly been looking to build much of its own hardware and software in house, particularly in the wake of a ban on its use offerings from U.S. companies. Notably it also announced a $436 million investment in building out an ecosystem around its Arm-based Kunpeng server chip.

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Reports claims all three new iPhones planned for 2020 will support 5G

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo — sometimes described as “the most accurate Apple analyst in the world” — has written a new note to investors saying that the three iPhones expected to launch in 2020 will feature support for 5G. In previous Kuo reports, it’s said the 2020 iPhones could be available in new sizes: a 5.4 and 6.7-inch high-end iPhones with OLED displays, along with a 6.1-inch model with an OLED display.

Previously, he predicted that only two of the three new iPhones slated for 2020 would support 5G. But with well-spec’d Androids flooding the market, he says it looks like Apple will offer 5G in all models in order to better compete. He’s also confirmed the view that Apple will be able to throw more resources into developing the 5G iPhone now that it has acquired Intel’s smartphone modem chip business.

The report, leaked to MacRumors, contains this quote:

We now believe that all three new 2H20 iPhone models will support 5G for the following reasons. (1) Apple has more resource for developing the 5G iPhone after the acquisition of Intel baseband business. (2) We expect that the prices of 5G Android smartphones will decline to $249-349 USD in 2H20. We believe that 5G Android smartphones, which will be sold at $249-349 USD, will only support Sub-6GHz. But the key is that consumers will think that 5G is the necessary function in 2H20. Therefore, iPhone models which will be sold at higher prices have to support 5G for winning more subsidies from mobile operators and consumers’ purchase intention. (3) Boosting 5G developments could benefit Apple’s AR ecosystem.

The report expects all three 2020 iPhone models to support both mmWave and Sub-6GHz spectrum (two different kinds of 5G) for the US market. Whether Apple will launch a 5G iPhone that only supports Sub-6GHz, allowing for a lower price and thus making it suitable for the Chinese market, remains unclear.

mmWave is the ‘fastest 5G’ that’s most often referred to, but as it is suited to denser, urban areas, it will not be used as much in rural or suburban areas, where mid-bands and low-bands, called sub-6GHz 5G, will be employed. All are banks are faster than 4G, with mmWave the fastest.

Apple will use modem chips from Qualcomm in its 2020 5G iPhones, while it works on its own modem chips, due in 2021.

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Siri recordings ‘regularly’ sent to Apple contractors for analysis, claims whistleblower

Apple has joined the dubious company of Google and Amazon in secretly sharing with contractors audio recordings of its users, confirming the practice to The Guardian after a whistleblower brought it to the outlet. The person said that Siri queries are routinely sent to human listeners for closer analysis, something not disclosed in Apple’s privacy policy.

The recordings are reportedly not associated with an Apple ID, but can be several seconds long, include content of a personal nature and are paired with other revealing data, like location, app data and contact details.

Like the other companies, Apple says this data is collected and analyzed by humans to improve its services, and that all analysis is done in a secure facility by workers bound by confidentiality agreements. And like the other companies, Apple failed to say that it does this until forced to.

Apple told The Guardian that less than 1% of daily queries are sent, cold comfort when the company is also constantly talking up the volume of Siri queries. Hundreds of millions of devices use the feature regularly, making a conservative estimate of a fraction of 1% rise quickly into the hundreds of thousands.

This “small portion” of Siri requests is apparently randomly chosen, and as the whistleblower notes, it includes “countless instances of recordings featuring private discussions between doctors and patients, business deals, seemingly criminal dealings, sexual encounters and so on.”

Some of these activations of Siri will have been accidental, which is one of the things listeners are trained to listen for and identify. Accidentally recorded queries can be many seconds long and contain a great deal of personal information, even if it is not directly tied to a digital identity.

Google is investigating the source of voice data leak, plans to update its privacy policies

Only in the last month has it come out that Google likewise sends clips to be analyzed, and that Amazon, which we knew recorded Alexa queries, retains that audio indefinitely.

Apple’s privacy policy states regarding non-personal information (under which Siri queries would fall):

We may collect and store details of how you use our services, including search queries. This information may be used to improve the relevancy of results provided by our services. Except in limited instances to ensure quality of our services over the Internet, such information will not be associated with your IP address.

It’s conceivable that the phrase “search queries” is inclusive of recordings of search queries. And it does say that it shares some data with third parties. But nowhere is it stated simply that questions you ask your phone may be recorded and shared with a stranger. Nor is there any way for users to opt out of this practice.

Given Apple’s focus on privacy and transparency, this seems like a major, and obviously a deliberate, oversight. I’ve contacted Apple for more details and will update this post when I hear back.

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Daily Crunch: Yep, Apple is buying Intel’s modem business

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Apple acquiring most of Intel’s smartphone modem business in $1B deal

Apple has entered into a deal to acquire a majority of Intel’s modem business, including Intel IP, equipment, leases and employees — it’s bringing over 2,200 new roles and 17,000 wireless technology patents.

The deal confirms earlier rumors that Apple would acquire the business in order to permanently uncouple itself from Qualcomm, the source of much contention for both parties over the last several years.

2. SoftBank announces AI-focused second $108 billion Vision Fund with LPs including Microsoft, Apple and Foxconn

Worth noting: The second Vision Fund’s list of expected limited partners does not currently include any participants from the Saudi Arabia government.

3. Twitter Q2 beats on sales of $841M and EPS of $0.20, new metric of mDAUs up to 139M

The U.S. continues to be Twitter’s revenue engine, the company said. It accounted for $455 million of its sales, up 24%, while international revenue was $386 million, up just 12%.

(Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

4. Trump threatens Apple with tariffs, Google with investigation on Twitter

The president of the United States called out two of the nation’s largest tech firms in a pair of tweets this morning.

5. Google says it doubled Pixel sales year-over-year

It looks like the mid-range Pixel 3a is the hit Google surely hoped it would be. The news came as part of the solid earnings that parent company Alphabet reported yesterday.

6. SpaceX succeeds with first untethered StarHopper low altitude ‘hop’ test

StarHopper is a scaled-down test vehicle designed to help SpaceX run crucial preparation trials for the new Raptor engine ahead of building its full-scale Starship reusable spacecraft.

7. Africa’s ride-hail markets are hot spots for startups and VC

The big players such as Uber and Bolt are competing in Kampala and Nairobi — where, in addition to car service, they offer rickshaw taxis. Meanwhile, many ride-hail companies in Africa are adapting unique product solutions to local transit needs. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

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T-Mobile and Sprint get DOJ approval for $26 billion merger deal

The U.S. Department of Justice this morning gave the green light to T-Mobile US and Sprint for their proposed $26 billion merger. The deal, which would combine the nation’s third and fourth largest carriers (by subscriber number) has been green lit on the condition that Sprint sell its prepaid assets (including Boost Mobile) to Dish Network.

As part of the deal, some nine million prepaid subscribers will move over to Dish, which will also have access to T-Mobile/Sprint’s network for a period of seven years.

The proposed merger has been under regulatory scrutiny for some time now, as the deal will leave three major wireless carriers accounting for more than 95% of U.S. mobile phone customers. Last month, a group of attorneys general led by New York and California sued to block the deal over concerns that limiting competition would ultimately drive up prices for consumers.

“The promises made by Dish and T-Mobile in this deal are the kinds of promises only robust competition can guarantee,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement offered to TechCrunch.“We have serious concerns that cobbling together this new fourth mobile player, with the government picking winners and losers, will not address the merger’s harm to consumers, workers, and innovation.”

A spokesperson for California’s AG tells TechCrunch that the office is currently reviewing the settlement. As it stands, the lawsuit could still present a hurdle for the deal.

“The reported deal would eliminate Sprint, an established competitor in the wireless marketplace, and replace it with Dish, an unproven newcomer that has no experience in building its own wireless network, which it will need to build essentially from scratch,” George Slover, senior policy counsel for Consumer Reports said in a statement. “The deal reportedly gives DISH some of the building blocks it will need to make a go of it. But it could take years for DISH to get to the point where Sprint is now — if it ever gets there.”

Proponents of the deal, meanwhile, have argued that the merger will actually make a combined T-Mobile/Sprint more competitive with category leaders Verizon and AT&T. Under the deal, T-Mobile (as it will be known) will represent around 80 million consumers in the U.S., making it a much closer third place to the around 100 million subscribers both top carriers currently have. They have argued separately that a deal would make it easier to compete with AT&T and Verizon in the push to deploy 5G, a sentiment with which the DOJ appears to agree.

“With this merger and accompanying divestiture, we are expanding output significantly by ensuring large amounts of currently unused or underused spectrum are made available to American consumers in the form of high quality 5G networks,” DOJ antitrust chief Makan Delrahim told The Wall Street Journal.

T-Mobile has been particularly aggressive in its lobbying attempts, after years of suggesting a proposed merger. Notably, its CEO John Legere and other executives have spent a combined $195,000 at D.C.’s Trump International Hotel since last April.

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WhatsApp reaches 400 million users in India, its biggest market

WhatsApp has amassed more than 400 million users in India, the instant messaging app confirmed today, reaffirming its gigantic reach in its biggest market.

Amitabh Kant, CEO of highly-influential local think-tank Niti Aayog, revealed the new stat at a press conference held by WhatsApp in New Delhi on Thursday. A WhatsApp spokesperson confirmed that the platform indeed had more than 400 million monthly active users in the country.

The remarkable revelation comes more than two years after WhatsApp said it had hit 200 million users in India. WhatsApp — or Facebook — did not share any India-specific users count in the period in between.

The public disclosure today should help Facebook reaffirm its dominance in India, where it appears to be used by nearly every smartphone user. According to research firm Counterpoint, India has about 450 million smartphone users. (Some other research firms peg the number to be lower.)

As WhatsApp becomes ubiquitous in the nation, the service is increasingly mutating to serve additional needs. Businesses such as social-commerce app Meesho have been built on top of WhatsApp. Facebook backed Meesho recently in what was its first investment of this kind in an Indian startup. Then of course, WhatsApp has also come under hot water for its role in spread of false information in the nation.

As ByteDance and others aggressively expand their businesses in India, Facebook’s perceived dominance in the country has come under attack in recent months. ByteDance’s TikTok, which has amassed 120 million users in India, has been heralded as the top competitor of Facebook by many.

A WhatsApp spokesperson also told TechCrunch that India remains WhatsApp’s biggest market. In 2017, Facebook said its marquee service had about 250 million users in India — a figure it has not updated in the years since.

WhatsApp, which has about 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide, does not really have any major competitor in India. The closest to a competitor it has in the country is Messenger, another platform owned by Facebook, and Hike, which millions of users check everyday. Times Internet — an internet conglomerate in India that runs several news outlets, entertainment services and more — claims to reach 450 million users in the country each month.

At the aforementioned press conference, WhatsApp global chief Will Cathcart said WhatsApp also plans to roll out WhatsApp Pay, its payment service, to all its users toward the end of the year — something TechCrunch reported earlier.

Its arrival in India’s burgeoning payments space could create serious tension for Google Pay, Flipkart’s PhonePe, and Paytm. For Facebook, WhatsApp Pay’s success is even more crucial as the company currently has no plans to bring cryptocurrency wallet Calibra to the country, it told TechCrunch on the sidelines of Libra and Calibra unveil.

In a series of announcements this week, WhatsApp also unveiled a tie-up with Niti Aayog to promote women’s entrepreneurship. “By launching ‘gateway to a billion opportunities’ and our digital skills training program, we hope to shine a light on the amazing work already happening and build the next generation of entrepreneurs and change makers,” said Cathcart.

On Wednesday at a conference in Mumbai, Cathcart announced a partnership with the Indian School of Public Policy — India’s first program in the theory and practice of public policy, product design and management — to bring a series of privacy design workshops to future policy makers. These workshops will explore “the importance and practice of privacy-centric design to help technology make a positive impact on society,” the Facebook-owned platform said.

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Samsung readies Galaxy Fold for September release

When it was unveiled on stage, the Galaxy Fold was heralded as the next big thing. Samsung seeded units to reviews and prepared for launch. And then a funny thing happened on the way to a smartphone paradigm shift: it started breaking. Multiple review units were sent back to Samsung with busted screens.

It was a small sample size, to be sure. First Samsung blamed reviewers themselves. Ultimately, however, there was enough concern to cause the company to pump the breaks entirely. Now, nearly three months to the day after the device was set for release, Samsung’s finally got concrete information on the long delayed foldable. The company just announced a September (of 2019, presumably) launch date for the device. No concrete date just yet — but at least that’s better than the “coming weeks” line we’ve been hearing about timeframe for a few months now. 

Samsung Galaxy Fold review: future shock

The fixes are pretty much what we’ve expected from the outset, but here’s the full breakdown straight from the company,

• The top protective layer of the Infinity Flex Display has been extended beyond the bezel, making it apparent that it is an integral part of the display structure and not meant to be removed.
• Galaxy Fold features additional reinforcements to better protect the device from external particles while maintaining its signature foldable experience:
• The top and bottom of the hinge area have been strengthened with newly added protection caps
• Additional metal layers underneath the Infinity Flex Display have been included to reinforce the protection of the display
• The space between the hinge and body of Galaxy Fold has been reduced.

The first bullet point is a direct response to those reviewers who peeled off the protective layer, thinking it was temporary. Again, Samsung put the onus on reviewers there, but ultimately shouldered the blame from a top layer that looked almost exactly like the laminate Galaxy devices ship with to avoid scratching. This fix hides those corners — and the temptation to peel them.

The next three, meanwhile, are reactions to a larger design flaw with the initial Fold, which allowed particles to fall between hinges. Once trapped behind the display, pressing the touchscreen would cause it to push up against the particles, damaging it in the process.

“Samsung has taken the time to fully evaluate the product design,” the company writes, “make necessary improvements and run rigorous tests to validate the changes we made.” The phone maker has, hopefully, learned a lessen from the Note 7 debacle from a few years back. After being too eager to get the product back to market, Samsung was ultimately forced to issue a second recall for the phablet and ultimately discontinued the product altogether.

This issue will likely have less of an impact on the company’s bottom line, as it was discovered before the product officially came to market. It has, however, been viewed by many as an indictment nascent foldables category. It was also apparently enough to cause Huawei to hit pause on the release of its own Mate X foldable, which has since been subject to additional rigorous tests.

A number of retailers have since canceled preorders. Likely the initial hiccup has also left many early adopters second guessing the decision to drop $2,000 on an unproven product. Samsung seemed ready for the Fold to be something of a niche product regardless, but the on-going saga could ultimately compound that.

More release details are being promised “closer to launch.” Turns out Samsung might have exactly the right stage for that big announcement a few weeks from now.

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What lower Netflix pricing tells us about competing in India

At a conference in New Delhi early last year, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was confronted with a question that his company has been asked many times over the years. Would he consider lowering the subscription cost in India?

It’s a tactic that most Silicon Valley companies have adapted to in the country over the years. Uber rides aren’t as costly in India as they are elsewhere. Spotify and Apple Music cost less than $2 per month to users in the country. YouTube Premium as well as subscriptions to U.S. news outlets such as WSJ and New York Times are also priced significantly lower compared to the prices they charge in their home turf.

Hastings had also come prepared: He acknowledged that the entertainment viewing industry in India is very different from other parts of the world. To be sure, much of the pay-TV in India is supported by ads and the access fee remains too low ($5). But that was not going to change how Netflix likes to roll, he said.

“We want to be sensitive to great stories and to fund those great stories by investing in local content,” he said. “So yes, our strategy is to build up the local content — and of course we have got the global content — and try to uplevel the industry,” he said, identifying movie-goers who spend about Rs 500 ($7.25) or more on tickets each month as Netflix’s potential customers.

Indian commuters walking below a poster of “Sacred Games”, an original show produced by Netflix (Image: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images)

Less than a year and a half later, Netflix has had a change of heart. The company today rolled out a lower-priced subscription plan in India, a first for the company. The monthly plan, which restricts usage of the service to mobile devices only, is priced at Rs 199 ($2.8) — a third of the least expensive plan in the U.S.

At a press conference in New Delhi today, Netflix executives said that the lower-priced subscription tier is aimed at expanding the reach of its service in the country. “We want to really broaden the audience for Netflix, want to make it more accessible, and we knew just how mobile-centric India has been,” said Ajay Arora, Director of Product Innovation at Netflix.

The move comes at a time when Netflix has raised its subscription prices in the U.S. by up to 18% and in the UK by up to 20%.

Netflix’s strategy shift in India illustrates a bigger challenge that Silicon Valley companies have been facing in the country for years. If you want to succeed in the country, either make most of your revenue from ads, or heavily subsidize your costs.

But whether finding users in India is a success is also debatable.

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Tinder’s new personal security feature can protect LGBTQ+ users in hostile nations

A new security feature rolling out on Tinder will help to protect LBGTQ+ users who travel to dozens of nations, which still criminalize same-sex acts or relationships.

As part of the update, users who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer on the app will no longer automatically appear on Tinder when they arrive in an oppressive state. This feature, which Tinder dubs the Traveler Alert, relies on your phone’s network connection to determine its location. From there it will give users the choice to keep their location private. If users opt-in to make their profile public again, Tinder will hide their sexual orientation or gender identity from their profile to safeguard the information from law enforcement and others who may target them, the company said.

Once a user leaves the country or changes their location, their profile will become visible again.

“The purpose of this is to protect users who could be persecuted for their identity in these countries,” a spokesperson said.

The dating app maker, which has tens of millions of users in 190 countries, said the update will warn users when they travel to a country where same-sex relationships are punished under law help to keep “all its users safe.”

“It is unthinkable that, in 2019, there are still countries with legislation in place that deprives people of this basic right,” said Elie Seidman, Tinder’s chief executive.

Seidman said it was part of the company’s belief that “everyone should be able to love who they want to love.”

Tinder’s new Traveler Alert feature. (Image: supplied)

When traveling internationally, foreign nationals have to abide by the laws of their host country — no matter how different or abhorrent the rules may be. Although LGBTQ+ rights have come a long way in recent years in many Western countries, dozens of less-progressive countries consider same-sex acts or relationships illegal.

In March, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) found 69 countries considered same-sex acts illegal — the number of countries included in the Traveler Alert — sans Botswana, which recently decriminalized same-sex relationships.

Nine of the countries, including Iran, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia — a major U.S. ally in the Middle Easy — allow for prosecutors to pursue the death penalty against same-sex acts and relationships.

Despite a slow but promising push for equal rights, several countries have reversed course and doubled down on their laws, despite international condemnation. One such nation — Brunei, a small south Asian absolute monarchy — was forced to back down from its plans to sentence those who had gay sex to be stoned to death amid outcry from several major companies and celebrities who threatened to boycott the country.

ILGA’s executive director André du Plessis praised Tinder’s effort to warn its users.

“We work hard to change practices, laws and attitudes that put LGBTQ people at risk — including the use of dating apps to target our community — but in the meantime, the safety of our communities also depends on supporting their digital safety,” he said.

Read more:

• Jewish dating app JCrush exposed user data and private messages
• Users complain of account hacks, but OkCupid denies a data breach
• Dating apps face questions over age checks after report exposes child abuse
• Happy Valentine’s Day: your dating app account was hacked, says Coffee Meets Bagel
• Apple and Google Play remove three dating apps after FTC warning about underage users

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