this is the business briefing. i'm sally bundock. talking tech — chinese giants alibaba and tencent announce their financial results we take a look at how the trade war is impacting their bottom line. and oil prices slide lower after saudi arabia announces two of its crucial oil stations are attacked by drones. let's look and financial markets. it's a mixed trading day in asia as investors are not sure which way to turn with the latest data from china showing its economy lost steam in april.

let's begin with china's largest and valuable corporations... aliba ba and tencent. and their latest results in a few hours from now they will offer glimpses into the world's second—largest economy. alibaba is china's largest e—commerce platform, and its latest fourth quarter results are projected at around $13.5 billion, up nearly 50% froma year ago. the company has 699 million monthly active users, and has grown 5% in three of the previous four quarters. but china's economy has been slowing and that could have an affect on alibaba's business.

hong kong—listed company tencent is best known for its wechat messenger service which in 2018 had over 1bn daily active users. tencent is also the world's biggest gaming company. but last year the chinese government unexpectedly froze the approval of new games. its last quarterly results saw profits slide 32% to $2.1 billion. both alibaba and tencent are competing against their us rivals, mariko oi takes a look at how they are faring. then known as thanks... no, not those, tech companies. they're the american companies which

dominate the industry, and they're pa rt dominate the industry, and they're part of our everyday life. china has its own version... bat. not these either. bat stands for china's three biggest tech giants. almost everything you do online in china is linked to one of these companies. so who are they? baidu does search, so it's in the same game as google but while the us firm is a world leader in internet search everywhere else in the world, baidu dominates in china. next is alibaba. it's like amazon but now much, much more. the company founded by jack ma already i’u ns company founded by jack ma already runs the biggest online shopping day of the year known as singles day. but alibaba has bigger ambitions. there's alipay, its mobile payments business, and it's pouring billions

into artificial intelligence what the t into artificial intelligence what thet in into artificial intelligence what the t in bat stands for tencent. not only is it the world's biggest... have you heard of wechat? it's china's most popular messaging platform. it has more than i china's most popular messaging platform. it has more thani billion users. wechat is also a payments app where you can send money to your friends to split a bill, for example. three tech giants that dominate life online for more than i billion people but if they want to turn their sights beyond china, their success will depend on who has more bite... bat or fatt. a brilliant explanation from mariko oi on who is who. i'm nowjoined in the studio by james erskine, who's the managing director of the big shot. what do you think these two

companies will tell us, alibaba and tencent, in terms of how they're doing? we've discussed some of the numbers, where are they at?“ doing? we've discussed some of the numbers, where are they at? if you look at there economic factors, the trade war, we can officially call it war now, the chinese stock market has remained relatively untouched, most of the effect seems to have happened to the us. market so that is the macro economic thing. if you look at the two companies there are two things to focus on i think, one is new product launches and the second thing is the potential for overseas expansion. on the new product launches, both businesses are looking to get more boring to increase profitability. there both going the way amazon has gone and they're both looking at cloud computing and almost b to b product launches to almost increase profitability and that's the other key factor to look at, what will

increase things from 25% to 45%, which is what they need to do to give the stock market and the broader economy comfort. in terms of global ambitions, alibaba has been open and clear about that recently about some strategies to move beyond mainland china. its operating in over 100 companies already, but in terms of global ambitions? one of the things that's holding them back in the territories they're currently in and regulation and regulatory factors. to give you an example, tencent launched a game and this game they couldn't get launched in china so they had to copy the game and make it more pro— the chinese liberation army, and that game they could then launch to the public. there are some factors you may be wouldn't see of the fangs that you would have to take on board. both are looking to take on more content. aliba ba

board. both are looking to take on more content. alibaba are looking more content. alibaba are looking more at al whereas tencent are looking at live content and may be live streaming services as well. there's always this issue with regards to users outside of china about their thoughts about using a company that might be closely linked to the chinese authorities. for example, we think about wechat, yesterday whatsapp was the big story and the fact whatsapp was vulnerable, we were all having to update our whatsapp at as it were. would we be enticed by wechat? what are the issues? i think there's a certain amount of sneering that goes on when you look ata sneering that goes on when you look at a company that's a bit different to what we're used to. when you think about alibaba, set up in 1999, a long time ago, and originally the culture dictated you work six days per week from 9am until 9pm and you only got a job if you lived in the

flat or a 15 minute radius. actually that sounds a bit quirky to us, but it's those things that have formed the back bone of the culture of businesses coming from their. looking at the rise of businesses like huawei, i know that's fraught with issues and problems, but finally we are waking up to a truly global economy where we are less sneering towards those businesses. we have to recognise them for sure and they are on the map, as it were. thanks for coming in and giving us your perspective on those. when we get numbers from alibaba and tencent we will you. dashed we will staying with china, the country's industrial output grew by 5.4% last month, which was slower than expected. the figure will reinforce some analysts views, that the country's trade war with the us is having a negative effect on its economy. rico hizonjoins us now from singapore. lovely to see you, rico. at the moment markets aren't too concerned

about these numbers but tell us what they say about china. factory out but wasn't the only data released that surprised expectations, retail sales slowed at the fastest rate for 16 years. private—sector fixed asset investment which accounts for 60% of overall investment on the mainland rose by 5.5% rather than 6.4% in the first quarter. in march the economy was showing tentative signs of improvement after a flurry of stimulus measures and better numbers in april would have confirmed the economy had turned the corner, u nfortu nately economy had turned the corner, unfortunately it wasn't meant to be and now with steep tariffs imposed by the us on chinese merchandise last week, economists are forecasting this could cut 0.5% from gdp growth, reduce exports by 2.7% and cost the country another 2.1 millionjobs. the and cost the country another 2.1 million jobs. the numbers and cost the country another 2.1 millionjobs. the numbers according to a nalysts

millionjobs. the numbers according to analysts reinforce these views that beijing will have to roll out more stimulus measures as a trade war with the americans intensifies. it certainly has. thank you so much, rico, in singapore. the us may be about to ramp up the pressure on chinese telecoms giant huawei. according to a report by reuters, us president donald trump will sign an executive order this week barring american companies from using telecoms equipment made by the chinese firm. elsewhere, huawei says it ready to sign no—spy agreements with governments to erase security concerns. a major blow for uber drivers in the us after the national labour relations board said that they are independent contracters, and therefore shouldn't be entitled to traditional labour protections. traditional safety measures include things like having the ability to organise unions and secure a minimum wage agreement. last week, uber drivers across the us protested against the ride hailing app over poor working conditions.

a quick look at the numbers. financial markets are a bit sixes and sevens at the gains in the us but off the back of a 600 point decline on monday. a bit ofain a 600 point decline on monday. a bit of a in asia. people looking for bargains as markets fell significantly at the start of the week. that's it for the business briefing this hour. the behaviour of some short term payday lenders is unacceptable the financial ombudsman service says after complaints more than doubled over the last year. this was in spite of the fact that one of the biggest providers,

wonga, went bust. here's our personal finance correspondent, simon gompertz. with a loan from wonga.comn... waqa collapsed partly due to the weight of compensation claims. if it hadn't claimed there might have been even more gripes from borrowers, saying no—one checked if they could afford a loan or they won't given the right information. the financial ombudsman service said it had 40,000 complaints about pay—day loans in the year to march, up 130%. its also concerned about fraud and scams, up 40% to 12,000 complaints, including a sharp rise in people tricked into transferring money out of their bank accou nts transferring money out of their bank accounts what meanwhile, the most complained about financial product ever, payment protection insurance, oi’ ever, payment protection insurance, or ppi, saw a slight fall to 180,000. for a lot of people it's about being lent money that's unaffordable and unsustainable over time. it's

unusual to see people who had only one 01’ unusual to see people who had only one or two pay—day loans, most people coming to us have ten or 20 and we've seen instances of people with 100 loans they've taken out, so that's really concerning. company behind quick quid topped the league of the most complained about payday lenders with the owner of lending stream next and wonga after that. the firms blame claims management companies for bringing what they say is a flood of unjustified complaints. but at the on—board ciman service where many of the complaints end up they describe the complaints end up they describe the figures as startling and sage to many people have been left struggling with debt. simon gompertz, bbc news. coming up at 6am on breakfast, dan walker and louise minchin will have all the day's news, business and sport. this is the briefing from bbc news. the latest headlines: as iran's supreme leader rules out going to war with the united states,

the pentagon raises its threat level assesment. 10 downing street says mps will have to decide what happens to the brexit deal in another round of votes injune. now it's time to look at the stories that are making the headlines in the media across the world. we begin with the guardian, and theresa may who has pledged to give mps another opportunity to vote on brexit early next month, with or without labour's backing, afterjeremy corbyn raised concerns about her ability to deliver on a cross—party deal. the independent says despite uk unemployment hovering at its lowest rate since 1974, around four million people are now working while living in poverty thanks to slow wage growth and cutsto in—work benefits. and cuts to in—work benefits. the south china morning post reports chinese tourists are shunning the united states amid the trade war and opting for more welcoming

destinations in europe. that's according to the chief executive of asia's largest online travel platform. on the front of the times, online clothing retailers are fighting back against shoppers who continuosly return items they have ordered. some stores are going as far as banning some customers from their websites because of the number of clothes that they order with little or no intention of keeping. and finally on the express website, eurovision 2019 is finally upon us, and the first round of performances have ta ken place at the semi—final in tel aviv, israel, with millions of people tuning in to watch the world's biggest singing competition. with me is james hughes who's chief market analyst at axi trader a brokerage firm. i haven't seen you for a while. i haven't seen you for a whilelj know. and we always seem to talk about brexit. no surprise.