into your voice remote. that's simple, easy, awesome. click, call or visit a store today. >> coming up, the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. the coronavirus continues its international spread despite some queasiness, global markets remain mostly robust. >> we could see a revision down to first-quarter growth. >> the speed with which the market has put it on the sidelines is pretty surprising. president trump claims credit for an economic comeback in his state of the union speech. >> the years of economic decay are over. >> january's u.s. jobs report brings it into the picture. >> has a snapshot of where we

are, it confirms the u.s. economy is in a good spot. ritika: earnings reports come fast and furious. >> we continued the strengthening of customer relationships. >> commercial momentum remains strong. >> important to focus on asset growth with margin and costs. ritika: while uncertainties loom over the short-term financial outlook, investors and policy makers offer long-term perspective. >> the reality of brexit is there will be winners and losers. >> we are ready to adopt a more face -- accommodative fiscal stance. >> wreak havoc concert in areas of the country and sectors of the economy. ritika: it is all straight ahead on "bloomberg best." hello and welcome. this is "bloomberg best."

mostweekly review of the important business news, analysis, and interviews from bloomberg television around the world. let's start with a day by day look at the top headlines. the week began with investors bracing for a shock. china's financial markets reopened after the lunar new year break amid rising fear and economic disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak. chinese markets, plunging as they return from the lunar new year holiday to the widening coronavirus crisis despite aging unveiling a raft of measures to aid companies hit by the outbreak and shore up financial assets. mainland all three chinese key indices fall by more than 9%, sending them on track for their worst day in 13 years. we had the pboc liquidity coming through and also the rate cut. losses some of those stemmed, but as we are seeing on

the close on the csi 300, that is one of the worst days for the index to its we saw the equity bubble burst in august 2015. >> we've got the chinese officials telling us privately that we could be seeing a revision down to first-quarter growth. don't know by how much. they are saying of living is on the table. last 24 hours, demand for oil said to have dropped 20%. bloomberg reporters writing, the drop is probably the largest shock since the global financial crisis. >> tens of millions within china are on lockdown, and that means planes on the ground, buses not moving, cars not moving and it is having a massive impact. unless this lockdown ends soon, it will affect the global energy system. >> pretty significant rebound. there was a lot of expectation we could see a massive global selloff after chinese markets

reopened, but it is contained to the mainland china share. >> out of the reporting fourth-quarter earnings and revenue from the key holiday quarter missed estimates. isgle's advertising business suggested to be struggling to maintain growth in the face of rising competition. the numbers in q4, it was this disclosure they gave that analysts have been asking for, some additional information about how much revenue to generate from youtube and for cloud services. that was a mixed bag. degenerated about $15 billion of 2019.e in we don't know where analysts work, but there is a sense that was lighted expectations, but the company was pointing to optimism about their ability to throw that in 2020. the cloud services were better received. people were encouraged by the winds in the space for the business. it sets up 2020 for a bigger

round of competition between amazon and google, but amazon going into the core advertising business of google wants google goes into their cloud services business. i think it will be tougher for both of these companies but great for both in the market over the next 12 months. to havetors are going to wait a little longer for the first results of the 2020 democratic race. results from the iowa caucus have been delayed amid technical ditches. >> alex -- glitches. >> you probably have not far from where i'm standing, they are trying to tally up the results. app,had created an iphone or an app to put in the results. that apps glitchy -- was glitchy. inconsistencies in results. they added the columns and the numbers did not add up. many of the candidates are on their way to the next contest,

which is new hampshire, without having any idea who won in iowa. s&p 500, the best two-day rally since october, a lot because of the turnaround in chinese stocks thanks to chinese officials taking steps to stabilize financial markets, injecting liquidity. >> it is absolutely extraordinary, tech stocks hitting new records. the speed with which the market has put virus fears on the sidelines, even though there is not real evidence of its containment, is pretty striking. in iowa, we are finally getting the delayed results from the first race to become the democratic candidate in this year's election. the lead,gieg is in with bernie sanders a close second after around 70% of the precincts have reported results. we are working our way toward the final number.

>> unquestionably a good night for pete buttigieg, regardless how this turns out. if he finishes first for second, bernie sanders also had a good night. you have questions about joe biden, who was once considered the dominant front runner. he saw a market move after iowa started coming, some bank because ofing up uncertainty being good for president trump. >> president trump striking a triumphant tone in his state of the union, touting a great american come back. >> years of economic decay are over. >> the main focus of the speech was the economy and economic growth, which really got the best response, even from some democrats in the chamber. the top of the speech was the most popular or at least most unifying part, talking about simple things like the unemployment rate and economic growth. it was when he turned on to

other more controversial subjects that the speech resulted in nancy pelosi tearing up a copy of the speech at the end. >> bloomberg has learned china will have tariffs -- cut tariffs on $75 billion worth of imports from the u.s. affected later this month, coinciding with the phase one move by the u.s.. the significance of this, china going ahead with at least part of its promise, even in the face of difficulty to the economy from the coronavirus. >> questions around whether or has contained the illness, whether or not it would be able to purchase or make purchase agreements that it came to in the phase one deal. u.s.billion worth of products over the next two years on top of the baseline 2017 imports. that is a question that remains but what economics is saying is that the signals, the ministry of finance saying they will reduce tariffs as planned,

saying to the u.s. we are sticking to this trade deal, even if we may not be able to make these large purchases at this time at this particular moment. we remain committed to the phase one trade deal. you are seeing the optimism in chinese currency and more broadly in equity space. >> shock shakeup at credit suisse. the chief executive resigns, a stunning reversal for the executive who was backed by key shareholders following the damaging scandal. he will step down after presenting the fourth quarter results next thursday. his replacement is a 20-year veteran of the bank. it follows a power struggle between thiam and the chairman. how much of a surprise is this? we heard of this fight between the chairman and chief executive, but a lot of shareholders have come out in support of the chief executive? >> it is still a huge shock that

leaving a couple of months after his chief operating officer. what you are seeing in the press release today is thiam apologized for every thing that has happened, the first he has done that. >> the chairman should be replaced. if he really cares about the organization, if he really cared about credit suisse, he would step down as chairman. employers -- nonfarm payrolls increasing by 225,000, topping all estimates in the bloomberg survey. the jobless rate also edged up to 3.6%. our --ticipation rate, average hourly earnings were 3.1% year-over-year. >> from an economic perspective, there is a lot to like about this report.

job creation, wage growth, labor participation. it all tells you the economy and the consumer are still in a good place. looking forward, we have to take into account what is happening in the rest of the world, but as a snapshot of our we are, it confirms the u.s. economy is in a good spot. trump spoke xi and by phone last evening. very constructive conversation, the president xi apparently said, it may be a little slower to purchase american exports, but it will get done. the export boom we are expecting from these strong new trade -- let's include usmca with that, that will help the economy and wages. the coronavirus outbreak death toll has risen to at least 636. president harold, praising xi jinping for strongly leading the country's response to the outbreak. the u.s. is preparing to assist

china, as authorities around the world are under increasing pressure to show leadership and action when it comes to containing the outbreak. we are seeing more measures being tightened around cities like shenzhen. ritika: still ahead as we reviewed week on "bloomberg best ," more on the global economic impact of coronavirus. the eu will have a fiscal response if the crisis drags 'st, plus, terra firma strategy now that brexit is a reality. >> we will be careful when it comes to certain types of real estate assets. ritika: next, highlights from another whirlwind week of robert earnings reports. >> we are expecting strong cash flow, building up from 2019.

ritika: this is bloomberg. ♪

ritika: this is "bloomberg best ." another busy week for corporate earnings reports. let's review the most interesting results. paribas kept pace with gains, even outpaced the gains of wall street rivals in the fourth quarter. the french bank posted in nearly 63% jump in fixed-income trading revenue after a rebound in rates and 4x activity. >> the bank posted solid results, up 5% on the back of continued commercial drive but in the other two polls and delivery of the transformation plan. we continued the

strengthening of our customer relationships, and particularly on the corporate and institutional side, leading to market share increases. international financial services remained 7%, and particularly private banking in europe and domestic markets. resilience in the low interest rate environment. >> societe generale has pledged to boost shareholder returns. that's after the french lender warned investors to expect muted revenue growth. probably better than people anticipated. six months ago, there is this virus issue in china. it is not the exposure we have in china, which is small, but like any company, what it could mean for the global economy. there is a lot of uncertainty. there will be a solution for that, but beyond this, i would yes, -- pretty

confident. yes, we have a slowdown economies, but we think we can deliver better performance in 2020 through all of the hard work done in 2019. >> setting up plans to cut 300 jobs. the swissexecutive of private bank is laying out a strategy that focuses on cost cuts. meanwhile, it has dropped its target for net new money after it missed goals for the last year. growth was the driver of the last decade. why change? growth has been the driver and will still be a relevant driver moving forward, but we believe we need a more holistic focus on the outcome rather than looking at the single factor. net new money in itself is relatively easy to achieve if you take away the economics. in today'sr environment and tomorrow's margin pressure to do that in a profitable way.

it is important to focus on asset growth at the same time as margin and costp. delivered have pretext profit for the fourth quarter that mr. lowest analyst estimates. the numbers come as the bank faces mounting pressure. where were the challenges in the quarter that took the number below estimates? q4if you look at the overall results, it is quite challenging. having said that, our commercial momentum remains strong. we added over 200,000 primary new customers to our now 38 million customer base worldwide. pc from a revenue perspective that is being driven by a lot more digitization by our over 37% ofe, now our customers are dealing with us purely on mobile devices. that has led to net interest income growth and fee income growth. where we see perhaps a difference with the street is

that our cost increase is somewhat higher. in timedriven by our money laundering program enhancements, which continue to make progress and has led to increased costs going into q4. >> disney reported first-quarter earnings and subscribers of disney plus sword, topping estimates. this signals a fast start for the world's largest and attainment company as it challenges netflix's online dominance. what was your key takeaway? >> they went and updated the numbers for the different disney streaming services so far this quarter. that is something that sucks doesn't characteristically do, so now you know disney plus has more than 28 million customers, espn plus is now above seven, hulu grew by the smallest amount, but all told, disney and when you're has become the second-biggest player in tv streaming after netflix. you could say amazon is bigger because of the number of prime customers, but we don't know how many of them are watching

videos. let's say netflix is still far and away the biggest, but disney with really impressive growth and strong viewership based on some of the data that bob iger shared about the popularity of different shows and how long people were watching on a weekly basis. >> shares of general motors climbed as the automaker forecast a boost in profit from new truck and suv models coming out. the company expects the new vehicles to make up for some of the weaker sales in china and the as it plans to bounce back from the toll that the 40 day strike took last year. you adjust the impact of $6.71.ike, it was strong performance from core operations, and when you look at the calendar year 2020 going forward, we expect the momentum to continue and particularly on the cash to where we have had a lot of focus in that area, we are expecting a strong cash flow

in 2020 building off of strong monte -- 2019 were regenerated 6.5 billion when you adjust for the impact of the strike. we are doing that with strong launches, trucks are performing really well. crossovers are doing really well, and the cost savings we put in place have helped us mitigate some of the macro impact we are seeing around the globe. bp is boosting its dividend after fourth-quarter profits beat estimates. bob dudley's final set of earnings run counter to the rest of the industry following a raft of weak results from his competitors. >> the main message from the fourth quarter is strong operating cash flow of 7.6 billion. 28 .2 billion for the year, that has allowed debt to come down, by over a billion in the fourth quarter versus third shorter -- quarter. how we've announced a package of disposals. we've announced a further 5 billion we will be doing by mid-2021.

all of that points to a major deleverage of the balance sheet through the end of this year and that has given confidence in moving the dividend this quarter. >> novo nordisk sees a modest increase in profit in 2020 with an expected rise of between one and 5%. that is the world's biggest maker of diabetes drugs faces pressing challenges, especially in the u.s. does the coronavirus change everything? >> short-term, it does not. we have inventories in china. we manufacture for china in china and we have a supply chain where -- the key concern is to make sure we bring our medicines to patients. if you have diabetes and rely on insulin, that is a life-saving medicine, so it is important for us to make sure there is an intact supply chain. short-term, we feel good about that but into months and years, it becomes more challenging.

short-term, we are in a solid place. ♪

ritika: you are watching "bloomberg best." i'm ritika gupta. effect of the coronavirus are being watched by governments around the world. a substantial slowdown would drag down demand and disrupt supply chain. a negative impact on europe's growth, european commissioner for economic and financial affairs spoke with guy johnson about the economic risks posed by the virus and what the eu can do to combat them. long, i will last for think we have to consider the possibility to have some

consequences in our global growth. if it will rapidly be contained, behink the consequences will perhaps only on the first quarter of this year. it is difficult to predict this now. ready chinese are are launching a substantial fiscal and monetary response to what is happening in their country. if the effects were to come to europe, is europe capable of delivering a similar fiscal and monetary response? paolo: i would say yes, in the sense that apart from the review of our rules of economic governance that i launched this morning, that will take a few months, we already decided in recent meetings of european minister of finance that in case of deterioration of the economic situation, we are ready to adopt

a much more supportive fiscal stance. what is sure is we can't leave only to monetary policy and only to the ecb the task to support the economy if there is a serious risk of a slowdown in race could also be coming from external factors as the coronavirus is. this, buty to assess i think we are ready to react, if needed. ritika: coming up on "bloomberg best," more compelling conversations. investment insight from howard marks and guy hands responding to the shocks of coronavirus and brexit. nobel prize-winning paul krugman shares his thoughts on monetary policy. he gives the fed a passing grade. >> there was a little bit of

tightening that was premature given what we have seen, but it probably didn't do a lot of damage. ritika: this is bloomberg. ♪ when it comes to using data,

everyone is different. which is why xfinity mobile created a different kind of wireless network. one that saves you money by letting you design your own data - giving you more choice and control compared to other top wireless carriers. now you can choose unlimited, shared data, or mix lines of each and switch any line, anytime. no one else lets you do that. design your own data with xfinity mobile. it's wireless reimagined. simple. easy. awesome.

ritika: welcome back to "bloomberg best." i'm ritika gupta. this week, guy johnson caught up with some of the world most influential investors at the alternate investments conference in london. let's revisit a couple of exclusive interviews starting with guy hands of terra firma capital, discussing how brexit is changing his business. isthe reality of brexit there will be winners and losers, which the government has admitted. how big the is winners and losers will be, and my concern is that if europe decides they are going to have

all regulation tied to the u.k. or it is not going to happen, so another words, meaning will not only talk about fisheries, but the service industries, that could be disastrous because you look at the gdp part of the economy, which is service exporting to europe, it will be devastating for the u.k.. guy: how does this affect where you look to make investments? guy: we will be careful when it comes to certain types of real estate assets because the city of london would be the big loser, huge loser. our european law firms are ready on a lot of the deals we do in the continent. frankly, it is easier, it is local. is whethercern to us the european court will be willing to enforce english law. of: do you see the trickle

distress in china becoming an avalanche has a result of what is taking place in the country? >> clearly, the virus, if it goes on for any period of time, will wreak havoc in sectors of the economy. china is talking about four or 5% growth -- 4.5% growth, which is extremely low. for a long time, they said we will get six and to say they will have 4.5, for us, that would bethe equivalent a low number or negative number. 4.5 does not keep the wheels turning over there and probably you would have substantial increase in distressed debt unless the bank injected liquidity offsets it. guy: would you see that as an opportunity? howard: yes, i would think so. it: you would be investing

if there was to be an increase in the amount of debt available, you would up your waiting in that area? emissions i would expect so, yes. ritika: this week,, saw the -- ever byted euros sub-saharan country. it was an offering that was almost five times oversubscribed. west africa africa's second-largest economy could face headwinds as the coronavirus outbreak dampens china's demand for commodities. donna's finance minister discussed all of this on bloomberg: daybreak europe. africa,nk clearly for the issue would be impacted some 20 percent down, price 9% or so and then crude oil about 17%. clearly, the market was looking for confident in the future. we are quite comfortable.

if we look at the imf, they warned against debt to gdp at 63% at the end of 2019 against 59% a year earlier. will that get worse given the commodity outlook we are facing at the moment? can we expect this debt to gdp ratio to rise rather than fall this year? ken: actually, what we have with twoimf is that we have theific issues, which is financial sector restructuring, which we have pay for and the energy sector restructuring. if unit that out, we are around 50% -- 58% debt to gdp. a key to all of this is the export boost we are expecting, and this will be outside of commodities. oilou look at contributions, that is 4.5% growth compared to the oil growth. we have a much more diversified economy than most and we expect

to do that. the continent of free trade act headquarters is going to be in bena, which means we will the pass-through for investment and trading to the future and we are banking on ghana becoming the regional hub of financial services, logistics, trade, etc. really, for us, once we get through the rigidities and debt-free profiling, we are -- debt reprofiling. we should do well. >> paul krugman joined bloomberg's what do you miss this week and the discussion turned to monetary policy. onoffered this perspective the rate cap under chairman jerome powell. >> i don't think the fed did a bad job in practice. in practice, they had easy money

when we needed easy money and they never tightened very much. there was a little tightening that was premature given what we have seen but it probably didn't do a whole lot of damage. it is not clear to me there is a lot more the fed could have done to boost the economy. i'm something of a qe skeptic. i don't think he did harm, but i don't think it is a tremendously powerful tool. the fed needs to think about their analytics, but i don't have screwed up too badly on policy. >> people say the fed hasn't done too much either way to slow down or accelerate growth. it hasn't been able to generate inflation in terms of consumer prices on a sustained basis, but they say asset prices we see in real estate and the stock market are a function of low interest rates, low nominal rates. how much of a link is there between these valuations we see in financial markets and the approach from the federal reserve? >> there is clearly a link between low interest rates and high prices. bond prices are high and so are other asset classes.

anything where you can't create more of it, like land or real estate, but corporate is monopoly rents. the question is are the low interest rates wrong? this is only a problem if you think low interest rates are inappropriate and it looks like we have a world that is awash in savings with no place to go. you want to have low interest rates. even low interest rates are barely sufficient to keep us from what turns out to be full employment. ♪

ritika: you are watching "bloomberg best." i'm ritika gupta. let's resume our global tour of the week's top stories in business, finance, and politics,

starting with the new fiscal plan from india. india, the second modi government budget in seven years has disappointed investors who were hoping for a big bang stimulus to revive the slowing economy. the plan proposes tax cuts and wider deficit targets, but failed to fix a struggling financial sector, improving to structure, or create jobs. india was the world's fastest-growing economy three years ago, but its expansion has slid to its weakest in a decade. >> there was expectation in the market, especially the stock market, there would be more money in the hands of consumers to spend and reside this consumption driven economy. that hasn't happened, so the onus will be on the reserve bank to probably keep interest rates low and policy dovish. >> central banks across asia, jumping back into action. the r.b.i. kept its benchmark

rate unchanged, resorted to unconventional policy tools. the philippines joined thailand to stem the economic blow from the coronavirus. >> last december indicated, cutting interest rates by 50 basis points this year. just provided us an opportunity to do it much earlier rather than later. >> so you are willing to go beyond the 50 basis point rate -- rate cut guidance you had, and when would it be the bet -- next cut? >> the central bank's data dependent. datall look at the past and our future outlook, and we will probably do it sometime in the middle of the year. the worst may not be over for europe's largest economy.

orders dropped 2.1%, the steepest in almost a year. spoke to lagarde parliament earlier saying the domestic economy remains resilient and pollinators -- policymakers shouldn't be blamed fo. >> this low-inflation environment has reduced the scope for the ecb and other central banks worldwide to ease monetary policy in the face of an economic downturn. >> surprisingly strong language, the word significantly. is really time for governments to have the fiscal space, to use the fiscal space to support the economy. the message is this is the next downturn we are talking about. not imminent threats, but there are imminent threats. you talked about german factory orders, poor numbers for december, showing the worst isn't over for germany.

coronavirus me -- were a threat to the global economy and therefore europe. to reportrg was first that russia is asking for more time before committing to an oil out and cut that has been recommended by the opec plus group. the producers alliance is facing a big test as a result of the coronavirus out break, which is weighing on demand for crude. talk about moscow's strategy. >> i'm not sure they have a strategy at such, it is more they need a much lower oil price than other members of the group. they budget for something on the order of $40 a barrel, so we are well above that. from the russian point of view, they don't need to do anything drastic because they are well within the range in terms of their revenue, but the rest, this is a more existential issue, particularly saudi arabia. the russians have learned over the last couple of years and this is a pattern we have seen play out in these meetings. the russians will always be reluctant, the saudis will be keen, and they come to an

understanding were saudi arabia does most of the heavy lifting. i wonder if it is not going that direction this time, as well. >> apple supplier soft con is for 2020unning outlook after imposing strict quarantine rules at its main iphone factory in china. what is the new outlook for the year? >> before the coronavirus outbreak spread across the globe. thathairman told reporters the company foxconn is looking -- three to 5% this year. yesterday, he told me they are going to cut the outlook by two percentage points. theas largely to do with counter coronavirus measures foxconn is applying at its iphone base in the central chinese city. workers returning to the iphone city will have to go through a

quarantine for up to 14 days and we can also expect it will implement similar measures throughout its chinese facilities when it brings workers back online on february 10. siemens has warned a market slump is set to continue after quarterly profit already missed estimates due to a steep decline in the automotive, machine building, and energy businesses. the results come on the same day as the annual shareholders meeting where the ceo is facing even more pressure from environmental activists over a contract to supply an australian coal miner. for siemens, numbers were weak across all divisions. the energy business is still suffering. both the renewable parts, the wind power business, which saw a today, theeek and health-care division isn't growing as expected. hot asrders aren't as

expected and auto weakness means the usual stall wart of siemens industrial software business isn't doing well, either. across the board, a pretty weak earnings quarter. >> tesla, hitting another all-time high. the stock has already doubled with observers trying to figure out how elon musk is doing it. it has been a phenomenal rally. the last couple of days alone. what is behind this? tesla has answered a lot of the questions in the last two quarters, but recently. they had the case that was used to poke holes in the tesla story. they said they couldn't generate money and the company would always be going back to the markets for more cash to fund elon musk's ambitions, but they did that. they generated positive cash flow, been positive to quarters in a row, and there has been a sentiment change industrywide that the age of electrification is here.

they've even got a cyber truck out there to give them some height and there is a lot of love around the stock. >> incredible six-day 60% rally in tesla that let wall street watchers scratching their heads has reached to a halt on wednesday. the electric vehicle maker fell as much as 21%, raising -- erasing most of the gains that the sock bashed stocks over the last two days. >> tesla has a dream about conquering electric vehicles, which i don't think is right. i think the other auto companies are starting to come out with electronic vehicles that will be competitive. the stock has certain dynamic growth aspects to it, cultlike aspects to it, you just have to walk away. >> road line is buying its rival from estate billion euros. the combined company will be europe's biggest payment service provider. all french

affair. a big company on the global stage, as well. >> absolutely. this deal is supposed to create the world's fourth-largest tema processing company, so this is some vague m&a news to kick off the week. ingenico shareholders are pleased with the deal, being offered a 17% premium to the friday closing deal. not so much for worldline. worldline are going down this morning. perhaps a sit -- its investors may be thinking they are overpaying for the deal. world we post brexit find ourselves in, eu authorities are trying to amend the financial rulebook. it is called mifid ii. walk me through the details. what is happening? it is part of a bigger narrative. eu, they are starting

to look at ways of changing mifid ii. to biging from small things about derivatives trading markets and things london is dominant in. this will roll over the course of the year. it will take a while, but it is very political and impact on whether a grants the all-important question of equivalents, london. that matters for big global investment banks. >> let's turn now to a mattress retailer, casper. a shrinking its ipo ambitions as it gets ready to test the public market's appetite for unprofitable startups. it had to cut its violation pretty dramatically by half.

what is going on here and what led this -- to this dramatic cutback? >> it has been on the road with investors the last few weeks on its roadshow to see what demand would be for its ipo. clearly demand didn't come in very strong and they had to take this unusual step, cutting valuation almost in half from the $1.1 billion valuation it had a year ago to now looking like if the company goes public, starts trading tomorrow, it will be at about $500 million or lower. this is really dramatic. to make sense of what we have seen in the ipo market were unprofitable companies don't find a lot of love on wall street. >> to go public, you had to cut the valuation of your company in half. how does that sit with you? >> anytime you raise capital for a business, there is an interesting moment in time, but for us as one of the founders of the business, we continue to be very excited about our long-term journey and that will be our continued focus, how to build the world's -- how to help people get the best nights sleep through innovative processes in -- progress in our mattresses, pillows. that is what we will focus around. ♪

>> be sure to keep up-to-date on the developing coronavirus story by running the function. you will see the latest figures from the cdc and how specific companies may be exposed. there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg and we always

enjoy showing you our favorites on bloomberg television. maybe they will become your favorites. go, our quick takes where you can get important contexts and fast insight into timely topics. here's a quick take from this week. our daily lives are ordered so much that many don't remember life before them. an estimated 3 billion smart phone users worldwide. over the past decade, we seem phones get larger, faster, and loaded with more features like fingerprint technology, improved cameras, and digital assistants. the pace of innovation is slowing at smartphone sales are declining. manufacturers are scrambling to find new ways to conjure up excitement. this is your bloombergquint take on the future of smartphones. in 2007, apples iphone ushered in the modern era of the smartphone.

at the time, text messages and slow data were about al. l most networks could handle common carriers moved to 4g. phones got more sophisticated and growth surged 40% in 2013. 2017 saw the first contraction and the trend continued into 2018. devices aren't making the big innovative leaps they used to. phones are getting more durable and some of the biggest markets for smartphones are reaching saturation. most chinese have a smartphone now. what will be the next growth driver? some of the world's biggest smartphone makers seem to think it will be the foldable screen, which doubles the size of the display without making the phone gigantic. companies like samsung, huawei, and xioumi are betting on it, samsung had to delay the launch of full phones after early users of the $2000 galaxy phone reported a failed

after only a few days of use. afterreen stopped working people peeled off the special film that looked just like a screen protector. >> it was a pretty devastating blow early in the process of releasing full double phones. what was unique about the samsung fold, it folded inwards like a book. huawei brought out a full double from their phones outward so the screen is on the outside. what that means is not falling as hard, not so much of a crease as you have on the samsung phone , so while companies are experimenting with how they will design these ed buck -- devices, they might go more for the huawei option. >> maybe the game changer will be 5g, though the rollout could be delayed by geopolitics. 5g networks promise to be so fast, it would take a few seconds to download a feature-length movie. phoneg has released a in south korea and huawei has one in the works. >> table support all the other technologies that are emerging.

for driverless car's to work, the world is counting on the capacity for wireless networks to carry the data. for the internet of things to work, which allows you to connect your refrigerator to the internet or remote control the lights in your house when you're not there. that requires a lot of bandwidth, a lot of data. >> experience has shown it usually takes more than one improvement to get people to shell out for an upgrade. 3g, en we went from 2g, to the ability to download the data that made all of these uses more possible, but not everyone use their phone the same way so what you need to do is the capacity for people to use their phones in new and different ways to justify spending more money. ritika: that was just one of the many quick takes you can take on the bloomberg. you can also find them at bloomberg.com along with all the latest business news and analysis 24 hours a day.

that will be all for bloomberg best this week. thanks for watching. i'm ritika gupta. this is bloomberg. ♪

join for a conversation with lee hsien loong, the long-standing prime minister of singapore. you sit in manila two big things. you have the u.s.-china relationship or the lack of it. you also have this current tide of nationalism, protectionism. you are