Daily Tech Snippet: Tuesday, August 11

Big Changes at Google: Major Restructuring and a New Holding Company Named 'Alphabet'; Shares Rise 6%: Google is listening to Wall Street, while also trying to keep its innovation going. The Silicon Valley behemoth is reorganizing under a new name — Alphabet — and separating its moneymaking businesses from the moonshot ones. Under the new structure, Mr. Page is to run Alphabet along with Sergey Brin, who co-founded the web search business with him in 1998. Alphabet would be the parent entity, housing several companies, with the biggest among them Google. In addition, the portfolio would include Nest, the smart thermostat maker, and Calico, a company focused on longevity, among other things. Sundar Pichai, who had been senior vice president in charge of products, will be chief executive of Google, which will encompass Internet such products as search, maps, YouTube and applications like Gmail. Mr. Pichai will add YouTube to his list of products. The YouTube chief executive, Susan Wojcicki, will now report to him, whereas she previously reported to Mr. Page. In addition, Mr. Pichai will oversee the business operations for Google. Google’s current business chief, Omid Kordestani, will end that role and become an adviser to Alphabet and Google. Ruth Porat, chief financial officer of Google, will remain in that position and will also be chief financial officer for Alphabet. Other entities under Alphabet will include Google Fiber, a provider of ultrafast Internet service. There will also be two financial businesses, Google Ventures, the venture capital arm, and Capital, which does private-equity-like deals. Google X, which includes projects like self-driving cars, a drone delivery service and an attempt to make Internet-connected balloons, will be managed separately and run by Mr. Brin.A holding company structure also gives Mr. Page and Mr. Brin, who became multibillionaires when Google went public in 2004, room to make big new bets to add to Alphabet’s portfolio — without annoying Wall Street. Over the last few years, investors have expressed concern that Google has become distracted from its core web search, instead pursuing projects fancied by its founders, like self-driving cars or a pill to detect cancer. The holding-company structure is set to provide more financial transparency. Starting in the fourth quarter of this year, Alphabet will break out financial results for Google Inc., as well as for the overall company. While investors will not be able to see individual results for other companies, the system will make it easier to get a sense of how Google’s core business is doing.

After Surprise drop in Exports, China Unexpectedly Weakens Yuan Reference Rate by Record 1.9% Amid Slowdown: China weakened the yuan’s daily reference rate by a record 1.9 percent, allowing depreciation to combat a slump in exports. The currency dropped an unprecedented 1.2 percent to 6.2848 per dollar as of 9:43 a.m. in Shanghai, and slid a similar amount in Hong Kong’s offshore trading. The onshore spot rate was 0.9 percent weaker than the reference rate of 6.2298, within the 2 percent limit allowed by the People’s Bank of China. Monday’s reference rate increase was a one-time adjustment, the PBOC said in a statement, adding that it will strengthen the market’s role in the fixing and promote the convergence of the onshore and offshore rates. It said also that it will keep the yuan stable at a reasonable level. The yuan’s effective exchange rate is stronger than that of other currencies, which is a deviation from market expectations, the central bank said. The comments come after the PBOC said earlier Tuesday that a strong yuan puts pressure on exports. China’s overseas shipments fell 8.3 percent from a year earlier in dollar terms in July, well below the estimate for a 1.5 percent decline in a Bloomberg survey.

Facebook Launches Autofill Forms, Improved Customer Service and Enhanced Video Analytics: Autofill Forms: Overview: Facebook’s latest ads automatically populate contact information that people have previously given Facebook, like email addresses, phone numbers, address, company name, job title, etc. Details: Facebook has dubbed its new ad type as “lead ads” and hopes that their existence will make the mobile signup process easier. Lead ads take the friction out of the clunky experience associated with responding to mobile ads and filling out forms. Instead of leaving one app to start a form in another app and then entering all the information again from scratch, lead ads allow users to stay within their news feed. Retailer Opportunities: Removing clicks and manual data entry can greatly boost conversion rates for those brands advertising on Facebook. What You Should Know: Lead ads aren’t currently available to everyone. Facebook is testing them with a small group of businesses around the world to gain feedback before rolling them out to the wider public. Improved Customer Service. Overview: Facebook’s latest step toward enhancing customer service for pages is “saved replies” — a feature allowing page admins to write, save and reuse canned messages when they receive an inquiry via Facebook Messenger. Details: When responding to a message, saved replies appear in a list to the left. Simply click on your desired response from the list and it will automatically display in the message body and auto-populate with personalization features, such as the respondent’s name, admin’s name and company website. Retailer Opportunities: Customer service via social media is increasingly becoming more common. Why would consumers want to spend an extended amount of time waiting on the phone when they can quickly shoot the brand a message? This new feature will save businesses time when handling incoming customer service inquiries. Enhanced Video Analytics. Overview: Video metrics have been added to page insights. Details: On the new dedicated video tab, page admins can track total views, 30-second views, top videos and metrics for videos shared by other pages. In addition to customizing the date ranges, you can slice the data into various segments, such as organic versus paid, auto-played versus click-to-play and unique versus repeat.

Xiaomi Plans to Have India Smartphone Lineup Produced Locally (By FoxConn): Foxconn has begun assembling Xiaomi’s first made-in-India smartphone from a new plant in the country’s south, helping the Chinese company shorten delivery times and prop up margins. Xiaomi, the world’s fourth-largest phone vendor, will source “100 percent” of Redmi 2 Prime devices sold in India from Foxconn’s new factory in Sri City, Hugo Barra, vice president of global operations, said by phone on Sunday. The Redmi 2 Prime went on sale online Monday, at $110 for a 2GB model. “We are starting small; but our eventual aim is to make most of our devices if not all of our devices that are sold in India, manufacture them here,” said Manu Jain, Xiaomi’s India head. “The entire ecosystem needs to exist before we start manufacturing the phone from scratch. This will probably take some time,” he said. Foxconn had begun production of smartphones at the Sri City factory, a person familiar with the matter said in July. The Taiwanese company, a contract manufacturer for the world’s largest electronics brands including Apple Inc., is looking to expand in the South Asian country amid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India campaign aimed at creating jobs and accelerating economic growth. Assembling locally will help Xiaomi shore up margins and take advantage of tax breaks in its largest market outside of China. As low-end smartphone sales slow in its home country, Xiaomi is depending on other emerging markets for growth.

Alibaba to invest $4.6 billion in China electronics retailer Suning; JD.com falls 6% on news: JD.com, a Chinese online retailer, sank to a four-month low after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s purchase of a stake in the country’s biggest electronics chain threatened to increase competition. The American depositary receipts plunged 6.3 percent to $30.06 in New York on Monday. Trading volume of 21.2 million ADRs was more than double the daily average of the past three months. JD.com, which gets more than half of its revenue from electronics and appliances, declined as most stocks on the Bloomberg China-U.S. Equity Index rose. JD.com slid after Alibaba, China’s biggest online retailer, said it will spend $4.6 billion to become Suning Commerce Group Ltd.’s second-largest shareholder with about a 20 percent stake. The ADRs extended their drop to 21 percent from this year’s high in June as concern mounted that stiffer competition will further slow sales growth in an industry already beset by the country’s slowest economic expansion in 25 years.

Twitter Shares Climb 8% on NFL Deal, Executive Stock Purchases: Twitter’s stock rose 8.2 percent on Monday after it unveiled a content deal with the National Football League and executives said they’re buying shares in the company. On Friday, the stock had closed at its lowest level since its November 2013 initial public offering, a slump that began in July when Jack Dorsey, co-founder and interim chief executive officer, warned that it will take a while before Twitter is able to reverse a slowdown in user growth. Today, Dorsey promoted his purchase of about $875,000 in shares with a tweet saying, “Investing in @twitter’s future.” Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto and board member Peter Fenton also bought Twitter shares last week, according to regulatory filings. It’s not the first time Twitter’s executives have coordinated their actions when confidence was low. Before reporting disappointing first-quarter sales, Twitter’s insiders halted all their sales for a few weeks.

Rackspace Pops 5% After Reporting Lackluster Q2 Results Buttressed By The Promise Of Share Buybacks: Following the bell today, Rackspace reported its second-quarter financial performance. The company mostly missed street expectations, with lower-than-expected revenue, and earnings-per-share that just met expectations. Shares in the hosting company are up just under 6 percent in after-hours trading. Rackspace reported profit of $0.20 per share on revenue of $489 million in the three-month period. Investors had expected the company to report a $0.20 per-share profit on revenue of $490.54 million. The company grew its revenue 11 percent compared to the year-ago quarter; the company was quick to note that using a constant-currency basis for measurement, it grew 13.7 percent. If Rackspace missed on its top-line projections, and barely met its profit requirements as set by the street, why are its shares up? Because the firm is signalling a stock repurchase, of $500M in the next 6-9 months; Rackspace intends to borrow money to buy its own shares to reward shareholders with presents it can only slightly afford.