- Muslim women break taboos navigating east London's waterways
- Nepal dam-building spree powers electric vehicle boom
- More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
- Dozens missing, 9 dead in migrant boat wreck off Spanish Canaries
- Death toll from Hurricane John hits eight in Mexico
- Storm Helene's toll rises as rescue and cleanup efforts gain pace
- SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding as cleanup begins
- SpaceX set to launch mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Boeing strike grinds on as latest talks fail to reach agreement
- Iran 'news' sites, hackers target Trump ahead of US election
- US ports brace for potential dockworkers strike
- Japan's speedy, spotless Shinkansen bullet trains turn 60
- US hurricane deaths rise to 44, fears of more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Global stocks mostly rise, cheering Beijing stimulus
- Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
- Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky Sun flypast
- Argentina judge orders dictionary to delete pejorative definition of 'Jewish'
- Global stocks rise on rate hopes, Beijing stimulus
- S.African woman turns 118, among the oldest in the world
- UK clears $4 bn AI partnership between Amazon, Anthropic
- Barca fans barred from Champions League away game over racist banner
- Chinese stocks extend surge, Europe higher on Beijing stimulus
- Pope says Church must 'seek forgiveness' for child sexual abuse
- China caps week of 'bazooka' stimulus for ailing economy with rate cut
- Cuts, cash, credit: China bids to jumpstart flagging economy
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- Iran treads carefully, backing Hezbollah while avoiding war
- Return to sender: waste stranded at sea stirs toxic dispute
- 'Broken' news industry faces uncertain future
- On remote Greek island, migratory birds offer climate clues
- Taken from mother by nuns, victim seeks answers as pope visits Belgium
- China cuts amount banks hold in reserve to boost lending
- Hong Kong, Shanghai extend surge as China optimism boosts markets
- Vietnam president reiterates support for Cuba during official visit
- Drought reduces Amazon River in Colombia by as much as 90%: report
- Stay or go? Pacific Islanders face climate's grim choice
- Florida bracing for 'unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene
- Poverty rises to over 52 percent in Milei's Argentina
- Chloe's see-through look may not be for Kamala Harris
- Champagne houses abuzz over English sparkling wine
- Macron, Trudeau pledge to work for 'decarbonized' economies
- Hurricanes, storms, typhoons... Is September wetter than usual?
- China stimulus, tech optimism boost stock markets
- 'Unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene races towards Florida
- Macron meets Trudeau in Canada as both face political setbacks
- South Korea surges in UN innovation index
- Chloe's see-through look may not be for Kamala
- Floods threaten Niger's historic 'gateway to the desert'
Meta sees itself as dwarfed by 'Giant Tech' Apple
Facebook parent Meta may be in the Big Tech club but it sees itself as being dwarfed by "Giant Tech" company -- and corporate foe -- Apple, a top executive, Nick Clegg, said Wednesday.
"There's Big Tech and there's Giant Tech," Clegg told an audience in Brussels, where Meta was courting policymakers with its latest virtual-reality (VR) gear.
"I mean Apple is now, what, eight times the size of Meta" in terms of stock market capitalisation, he said.
"I mean, it's just there is very, very, very, very big" in the Big Tech sector and Apple is it, added Clegg.
The comparison underlines Meta's steep market slide over the past 16 months -- and the bad blood with Apple, which has eviscerated Meta's data collection strategy.
Apple last year introduced a data privacy option on its hugely popular iPhones that prevents Meta and other online data collectors getting user tracking information they previously relied upon to target advertising.
That has contributed to a halving of Meta's third-quarter profits this year.
The US company's costly focus on the metaverse, a virtual world where users appearing as digital avatars can interact, has also played a role.
Meta -- re-branded to reflect its focus -- has spent a staggering $100 billion to date on building that technology, whose widespread adoption is forecast to be many years away.
Meta last month announced it was axing 11,000 employees -- 13 percent of its workforce -- in a general tech belt-tightening that has also seen jobs shed at Twitter, Amazon and Hewlett-Packard.
- Challenge from China -
Meta's stock market capitalisation has slid from an all-time high of $1.07 trillion in August 2021 to just over $300 billion today -- a 72 percent drop.
Apple's over the same period has stayed steadily above $2 trillion since late 2020, and is currently around $2.3 trillion.
Meta has long complained that Apple is building a "walled garden", with its users locked into its devices, operating system and app store, at the expense of Meta and other online players.
Both Meta and Apple, as well as other Big Tech ones, have repeatedly come under the regulatory microscope in the European Union and the United States as commercial strategies butt up against anti-trust and data privacy concerns.
But Clegg said China was increasingly challenging the US domination of the online world.
"You've got US and Chinese big tech now really kind of looming over the whole scene," he said.
"And don't, by the way, underestimate how aggressively Chinese big tech is investing in the metaverse," he added, pointing to the Pico VR headsets being marketed by ByteDance, the Chinese owner of popular social app TikTok.
Meta's own investment into VR and Augmented Reality -- collectively known as XR, or extended reality -- showed its belief that "the biggest bets are the bets which are furthest away... and they're also the ones where the technology is most expensive," Clegg said.
Investor criticism of that focus, and a "narrative of pessimism" about Meta's focus on it, "profoundly underestimates the very, very strong health of the underlying business" of the company, he said.
X.Wong--CPN