Industry news

The UK nuclear supply chain has received a £13 million investment designed to boost services through the development of innovative practices and products.

The funding comes from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) and a range of other public bodies, and follows the decision to construct Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear pwer station in over 20 years.

Energy minister Michael Fallon said: “This funding will help UK companies to compete for contracts in areas like construction, manufacturing, operation, maintenance and decommissioning and waste. We want to build a robust UK-based supply chain for existing and future nuclear power stations.”

Expectations turn to China for future power as Centrica pulls out of nuclear project

George Osborne has warned of further cuts over the coming year, which he described as a "year of hard truths".

He said that £25 billion in savings would need to be achieved in order to balance UK spending, saying that the UK was currently: "borrowing around £100bn a year - and paying half that money a year in interest just to service our debts".

Mr Osborne suggested that the cuts would come from reductions in welfare spending, including cutting housing benefits for under-25s, and restricting housing for those with an income of over £65,000 a year.

The announcement comes as the Chancellor seeks to cement the government’s economic strategy in preparation of the next general election.

UK government cuts see borrowing drop

UK prepares for 2013 budget

HTC has reported worse than expected profits for its fourth-quarter, with a net profit of T$0.3 billion despite significant cost-cutting practices.

The net profit compares to T$1.01 billion in the same quarter of 2012, and fails to meet the expected amount of T$721.71 million according to Reuters.

Despite marketing campaigns HTC has struggled to differentiate its brand from the likes of Samsung and Apple, while attempting to move away from continued poor market performances, which seek to put off customers from investing in devices which may not be supported should the company fail.

Currently HTC hold a 2.2 per cent global market share, compared to the 10.3 per cent it used to hold in 2011.

HTC rumoured to be looking at outsourced production

HTC and Apple settle outstanding patent disputes

The UK’s services sector showed slow-down in December according to the monthly services purchasing managers' index (PMI), with PMI falling to a six month low of 58.8.

The slowdown in activity saw the services sector underperform against analyst predictions, who had expected a continuation of Novembers PMI of 60.

Despite the underperformance, the PMI shows continued growth with expectations of further growth in 2014, with businesses seeking to expand while banks are still lending.

UK services sector reports strong growth

Telecommunications giant Telefonica is moving ahead with plans for a joint offer takeover of TIM Brasil.

The joint offer according to sources quoted in Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore (which owns a stake in TIM Brasil), is part of Telefonica’s plan to acquire and break up the unit.

The joint offer could potentially be ready by the end of this month. News of the potential purchasing plan comes despite pressure on the telecommunication giant to reduce its grip of the Brazilian telephone market.

Telefonica agrees on $1 billion sale of O2 Ireland to 3

Telefonica sells online travel agency Rumbo to Bravofly

Cybersecurity company FireEye Inc has bought computer forensics specialists Mandiant Corp in a $1.05 billion deal.

Mandiant has hit the headlines in the past for its role in revealing the involvement of a specialised Chinese military unit’s involvement in hacking major U.S. companies.

The markets responded favourably with FireEye shares rising by 20 per cent on the announcement of the merger, which creates a cybersecurity company focused on contemporary cloud based services.

FireEye has said that it expects to see revenue growth of 50 per cent this year.

Shortages in IT security specialists fail to meet demand

New cyber-crimes unit looks to create links with the City

The UK construction industry has recorded strong growth, with eight months of continuous growth on record from increased commercial projects and growth in the economy.

With a PMI of 62.1 in December, the construction industry continued to grow with increasing employment in the industry and anticipation of greater increases over the new year from improved business conditions.

Increasing projects have created a strain on construction supply stocks which have in turn resulted in increased project delivery times.

New figures shows signs of recovery in UK construction

Glitches have hit customers of RBS and Natwest banks, with many having their cards denied at Tesco petrol stations.

The fault appears to have been caused at the Tesco end of operations and be limited to pay-at-pump transactions with customer pins being denied.

Tesco said: "We are investigating reports of problems affecting some of our pay-at-pump services. We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience caused."

The technical glitch impacting the bank users comes after a series of technical issues over 2013.

NatWest hit by further IT failings

Regulators move to investigate RBS IT failings

The BBC has placed a tender for a web analytics system for marketing and web reporting, with the total contract value given as £18 million over three years.

The analytics system would be used to gather data used for regulatory reports as well as being used to drive overall efficiency and value for money for licence payers.

The analytics services are divided into two lots, one being a single supplier framework for the general analytics services, and the other lot being a multi-supplier framework for specialist services including predictive and social media analytics.

BBC tenders for mobile services provider

The Labour party have claimed that the six main energy suppliers (SSE, E.ON, EDF, npower, Scottish Power and British Gas) have inflated prices artificially over the past three years.

The Labour party who have promised to freeze energy prices, claimed after analysing official figures that the six big energy firms had paid £4 billion more for power than the going market rate, resulting in inflated prices for customers.

Shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint said that households pay around £50 per year more with the major energy suppliers for energy, than they would pay on the open market.

The shadow energy secretary said: "Energy companies always blame wholesale costs when they put up bills, but it now looks like they could have deliberately inflated prices to boost profits from their power stations.”

She added: "The time has come for a complete overhaul of our energy market. Labour will break up the big energy companies, put an end to the secret deals and force them to do all of their trading on the open market."

Representative of the six suppliers, Energy UK, said that the posted figures covered more than the wholesale cost of energy.

British Gas rolls out new SAP billing scheme

Centrica pulls out of energy infrastructure expansion