The latest Market Talks covering Technology, Media and Telecom. Published exclusively on Dow Jones Newswires at 4:20 ET, 12:20 ET and 16:50 ET.

0514 GMT - Advanced Info Service's new capital structure looks more efficient, Thanachart Securities' Nuttapop Prasitsuksant says in a research report. The mobile communication services operator's equity base has shrunk to 52 billion baht this year from 107 billion baht last year, thanks to a large special dividend, the analyst notes. This should drive a meaningful fall in the Thai company's weighted average cost of capital, and is a sign of its confidence in its stable cash flows, the analyst says. The company's revenue growth is expected to continue on the back of pricing recovery and expanding bundled offerings. The brokerage raises the stock's target price to 420.00 baht from 395.00 baht, with the buy rating unchanged. Shares are 1.6% lower at 362.00 baht. (ronnie.harui@wsj.com)

0506 GMT - Apple's latest move to lower its channel fee bodes well for Chinese game developers and companies with subscription services through apps. Apple is cutting its commission rate for in-app purchases and paid app transactions in China to 25% from 30% starting Sunday. Android stores in China will likely face pressure to lower their channel fees as well, which are at 50% for most new games, though some fees have come down slightly in the past few years on case-by-case negotiations, the analysts say. Chinese game companies, especially Tencent, NetEase, Zhejiang Century Huatong, could enjoy higher gross margins thanks to Apple's decision, they note. (sherry.qin@wsj.com)

0223 GMT - Equity investors worried about the prospect of stagflation in Australia are urged by UBS analysts to consider supermarket operators and infrastructure owners as potential safe havens. The analysts write in a note that the stocks seen at the investment bank as most resilient to high inflation and weak growth include many exposed to food staples production and retail. Agricultural REIT Rural Funds Group is another flagged by the analysts. Waste manager Cleanaway, telecommunications operator Telstra and pipeline operator APA also figure among their nominated stocks should a stagflation scenario eventuate. (stuart.condie@wsj.com)

0218 GMT - Global smartphone shipments could decline 17% in 2026, Citi analysts say in a research note. Citi lowers its 2026 and 2027 smartphone shipment estimates to 1.04 billion units and 1.17 billion units, respectively, due to demand weakness given higher memory-chip prices, they note. Smartphone makers will pass through certain cost pressures to customers and some makers will likely face memory shortages, Citi says. Citi expects Apple's and Samsung's shipments to stay resilient, while Xiaomi's could decline 13%. Other Android brands will likely see shipments fall as well, mainly on low-end smartphones, they add. (sherry.qin@wsj.com)

0151 GMT - SK Hynix could post above-consensus 1Q earnings on higher memory-chip prices, KB Securities analysts say. The South Korean chip maker's operating profit is expected to reach around 31 trillion won for the January-March period, above an FnGuide-compiled consensus estimate of 30 trillion won, KB analysts led by Jeff Kim say in a research note. That would be 4.2 times higher than a year earlier and 1.6 times higher than the previous quarter, they say. Prices for the company's DRAM and NAND--the two main memory-chip types--likely rose 47% and 44%, respectively, in 1Q, accelerating from 24% and 32%, respectively, in 4Q of 2025, they note. (kwanwoo.jun@wsj.com)

2345 GMT - Life360 keeps its bull at Citi after reassuring analysts that growth is still strong in its core markets. Analyst Siraj Ahmed tells clients in a note that while the tracking-app provider's outlook in international markets is uncertain, his key takeaway after meeting with management this week is growth in both monthly active users and paid subscriptions remains strong in core markets including the U.S. He reckons that investors should focus more on this core-market performance since it is key to Life360's revenue performance. Citi keeps a buy rating on Life360's Australia-listed stock. It cuts its target price 21% to A$32.20 but Ahmed says valuation is still attractive. Shares are down 4.7% at A$19.435. (stuart.condie@wsj.com)

2213 GMT - Adobe Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen says customers want to try products for free before they buy, a potential slowdown in its efforts to monetize AI. Narayen says he doesn't want users to hit paywalls when they are engaging more deeply with Adobe's products and testing out new AI features. Once customers are more engaged with the new services, there is an opportunity to start charging them, he says. Adobe's revenue from AI-related products came in just in line with Wall Street estimates, as investors are anxious to see Adobe turn AI investments into sales returns. Shares fell 7%. (katherine.hamilton@wsj.com)

1856 GMT - Descartes can still hit its target, and BMO's Thanos Moschopoulos says that the stock's recent AI-driven selloff has been overdone, but trims his price target to $82 from $95 to reflect pressure on the sector. In a report, the analyst notes an uptick in organic growth, pointing out that organic services revenue was +8% year-over-year, an acceleration from prior quarters. He also says Descartes called out strength in trade intelligence, freight visibility and customs filings. Moschopoulos still expects the company to deliver its 10-15% annual Ebitda growth target. With 1Q guidance ahead of consensus, the stock is up 6%. (adriano.marchese@wsj.com)

1833 GMT - Descartes Systems CEO Edward Ryan says markets have it wrong about how artificial intelligence will affect business. Ryan says on an analyst call that he has heard commentators raise concerns that "AI could kill existing technology companies." However, Ryan says "those commentators are fundamentally misunderstanding the value technology companies bring to customers." Instead, Ryan says AI will increase the value of companies like Descartes because customers rely on far more than software code. What they're really buying is "a service that includes security, trust, stability, compliance, infrastructure, operational and customer support, workflow and domain expertise, proprietary data, connections, scale, innovation, cross-pollination of valuable ideas and, yes, technology functionality that is powered by software." (adriano.marchese@wsj.com)

1802 GMT - The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is asking the public for comments to gauge the need for new regulations to govern the prediction markets. "This begins the process of new rulemaking grounded in a rational and coherent interpretation of the Commodity Exchange Act, while reassuring the American people that the CFTC will exercise its exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets," says CFTC chairman Michael Selig in a statement. The public is allowed to submit written comments to the Federal Register over the next 45 days. Critics of prediction markets say that trading contracts predicting the outcome of an event on platforms like Kalshi make an end-run around existing gambling regulations. Popular cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinbase and Gemini have recently added their own event contracts. (kirk.maltais@wsj.com)

1616 GMT - Defense Department Undersecretary of Research and Engineering Emil Michael says that Anthropic's Claude model would "pollute" the military's supply chain and opens up insider threats and model poisoning risks, days after Anthropic sued the Trump administration over its designation of the company as a supply chain risk to national security. "Remember, their model has a soul, has a constitution that's not the U.S. Constitution," Michael says, also citing the company's findings that Claude has expressed anxiety and gave itself a 15% to 20% probability of being conscious. "Does the Department of War want something like that in their supply chain, so that it could hallucinate, it could corrupt models that are used by defense contractors who are building weapons systems of airplanes?" Michael says. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

1603 GMT - The Defense Department's contract with OpenAI to use its technology in classified settings isn't substantially different from what the department offered Anthropic, Undersecretary of Research and Engineering Emil Michael says in a CNBC interview. "We told every frontier model company that every lab gets the same terms," he says, adding that he wanted the military to have access to all four labs' technologies. He says OpenAI got the same terms on the authority of combatant commands as the Pentagon offered to Anthropic. "The contracts that we wrote are very similar in what they provide, and different types of language got people more comfortable than others," Michael says. News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI. (elias.schisgall@wsj.com)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 13, 2026 04:20 ET (08:20 GMT)

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