British-American Carnival Corporation & Plc to suffer losses up to $95 million for sinking Costa Concordia

Official sources of British-American Carnival Corporation & Plc, the parent company of stricken luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia, revealed that the company will have to bear a loss up to $95m by the sinking of plunged ship.

British-American Carnival Corporation & Plc to suffer losses up to $95 million for sinking Costa Concordia

"For the fiscal year ending November 30, the impact to 2012 earnings for loss of use is expected to be approximately $85-$95m or $0.11-$0.12 per share," Carnival said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

Though the company would enjoy an insurance coverage for damage to the ship with an approximately $30m.

"The vessel is expected to be out of service for the remainder of our current fiscal year if not longer," the statement revealed further.

The tragedy could hit the company even more severely as its shares already dropped 18% in early trading after the statement mentioning that the loss of earning from the capsizing of Costa Concordia to be between $85m and $95m. 

The cruise ship ran aground near the island of Giglio off the coast of Tuscany on Friday evening, killing six people.

Italian, German, French and British nationals were among the 4,200 passengers on board.

Shrinking U.S. defense budget forcing Boeing to close Wichita plant by end of 2013: Mark Bass

WICHITA, Kan. (Jan. 04) – U.S. aerospace giant Boeing plans to close down its Wichita, Kan., plant which would impact more than 2,000 employees working in the plant. The decision has reportedly been taken in the wake of shrinking U.S. defense spending.

Boeing to close Wichita plant by end of 2013

Boeing officials told, validating earlier reports, the shutting down will be exercised by the end of 2013, but it doesn't expect job cuts to take place until early in the third quarter of 2012.

Boeing said in a statement, “The site does not have enough sustainable business on the horizon to create an affordable cost structure to maintain and win new business.” Future aircraft maintenance, modification and support work will be done at its San Antonio facility. The shifting to the new plant will start in the months ahead, the statement disclosed further.

The plant under the threat of closing down has been manufacturing aircrafts since 1929 and it is part of Boeing's defense, space and security apparatus, or BDS. The Wichita plant, with more than 2,160 workers, had been the company's base for its worldwide transport executive systems business as well as its B-52 and 767 International Tanker programs.

However, the facility had been hit with program closures and the winding down of contracts over the past five years.

“The site does not have enough sustainable business on the horizon to create an affordable cost structure to maintain and win new business. We recognize how this will affect the lives of the highly skilled men and women who work here, so we will do everything possible to assist our employees, their families and our community through this difficult transition,” said Mark Bass, vice president and general manager for BDS' maintenance, modifications and upgrades division.

Boeing said it will provide workers with retirement seminars, job search resources, financial counseling and help finding work inside or outside of Boeing.

Google Chrome giving tough time to Microsoft Internet Explorer by increasing browser market share

“Every rise has a downfall”, it’s an old saying but fits very much for recent victory of Google Chrome over Internet Explorer in terms of market share.

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8, which was considered as the undoubted king of browsing and once the holder of ‘world’s most-used browser’ tag, has lost its supremacy in browsing field to its toughest rival Google Chrome.

According to statistics and figures by StatCounter, a Web Analytic firm, Internet Explorer 8, after been trailed slightly by Google chrome in last week of November, has lost significant share of market until now.

The statistics shows that in last week of November, Internet Explorer 8 was capturing 23.5% of browser market share as compared to 23.6% of Google Chrome leaving a gap of just 0.1%; but the latest stats have shown that the gap has widened to 3% with browser market share of 22% and 25% for Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome respectively.

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Kingdom Holding Buys Shares of $300 Million in Microblogging Site Twitter

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, - nephew of Saudi King who earlier this month was declared as the Arab world’s richest business man - announced the purchase of a $300 million stakes in microblogging site Twitter.

According to an emailed statement from Prince Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Company; the huge investment in Twitter by the company is part of a drive “to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact.”

Prince Alwaleed’s stake is equivalent to 3.6% of the Twitter’s total value of $8.4 billion estimated by the analysts in October this year.

Microblogging site Twitter - allows users to send messages called ‘tweets’ of up to 140 characters each – has achieved recently a land mark of 100 million active users who send 250 million tweets per day.

“Social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years. Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend,” Ahmed Halawani, executive director of private equity and international investments at Kingdom Holding, said in the same statement.

Arabian Business magazine has rated Prince Alwaleed as the Arab world’s richest business man, with more than $21 billion in wealth in 2011.

Officials of Kingdom Holding, which was pursuing to purchase the shares of Twitter since October, didn’t provide any further details of the deal early Monday. Matt Graves, a Twitter spokesperson, confirmed the deal but refused to comment further.

It is worth-remembering that different online forums and social-networks, like Twitter and Facebook, had played a key role in the on going Arab revolution as the same were extensively used by activists during this year’s Arab uprisings.

Korean electronic giant Samsung breaks the record by selling more than 300 million units in 2011

SEOUL, South Korea (Dec. 12) - Samsung is enjoying great leaps in the market by the growing in terms of sales over the past few years. The latest milestone achieved by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is “The Highest Number of Units Sold in any Financial Year”.

Sumsung sold more than 300 million units in 2011

Sumsung - the world's second largest handset maker by volume (counting smartphones and feature phones), trailing Nokia - said in a statement it had broken its sales record by the end of last month by selling more than 300 million units for the first time in the history of electronic giant.

The volume of sales in current year is up from 280 million in 2010, which itself was a big improvement over 2009. Samsung said the company's flagship Galaxy S smartphone series - Galaxy S and Galaxy S II - contributed significantly to the results.

Samsung's president and head of the Mobile communications business, JK Shin, says "We look forward to extending this success going into 2012".