Word: low-cost
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...Hong Kong. "They have to transform." Brands and retailers have been consolidating, liposuctioning off layers to better battle Goliaths Wal-Mart and Target--which mostly do their own sourcing. A developing China and the Internet have made it simpler and more reliable for buyers to communicate directly with low-cost factories. Li & Fung has been able to achieve an average annual growth rate of more than 20% over the past decade. But going forward won't be as easy...
...hour or $17 a month at 7,500 cafés, hotels, pubs, airports and other public places in Britain, Germany and Sweden. That's a service that cell-phone companies like Vodafone and Orange are struggling to sell via their 3G mobile-phone networks. Wi-fi, which uses low-cost, wireless Internet connections, has stolen some of the thunder. "I wanted to build a broadband wireless business for the last 10 years, and when wi-fi came around four years ago," says Polk--whose varied experience includes running the Latin American unit of Global Wireless holdings, a company backed...
Since 1998, when a glut of tea from low-cost producers caused prices and profits to plunge, Indian growers have struggled to pay the country's 1 million tea workers. Unpaid employees launched a wave of strikes, while some owners sold or simply abandoned their plantations. "Many tea plantations became totally unviable," says Shiv K. Saria of Soongachi Tea Industries, which owns five tea farms in northeastern India. Estates went bankrupt because they were selling at below-cost prices and banks wouldn't lend any more...
Still, even Fernandes doesn't expect budget airlines to create the same upheaval for big carriers in Asia that they have in the U.S. and Europe. A tighter web of regulation provides established airlines more protection by preventing low-cost carriers from hopping from city to city around Asia the way Ryanair does in Europe. With only 2% of airline capacity in the region, the budget carriers have a long way to go to challenge the big boys. Most of all, major Asian airlines have much lower costs than their U.S. and European counterparts, allowing them to compete more easily...
With so many budget carriers starting up, they might be a bigger threat to one another than to the major carriers. Thailand has no fewer than seven low-cost operators. In September, Singapore's A-Sonic Aerospace said it plans to start a budget carrier in China with a Chinese state company. Tiny Singapore will be home to three low-cost airlines: Valuair, Jetstar Asia (which boasts Australia's Qantas Airways as a large shareholder) and Tiger Airways (backed by Singapore Airlines). "We'll grow as quickly as we can and fly wherever we can," vows Stephen Johnson of Indigo...