Financial Freedom. Best business news.

Japan posted a current-account surplus in January as exports climbed for a second month, an indication overseas demand is sustaining the nation’s recovery.

The gap was 899.8 billion yen ($9.9 billion) compared with a deficit a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said in Tokyo today. The median estimate of 26 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a 783.9 billion yen surplus.

The report highlights the role overseas shipments have continued to play in propping up the world’s second-largest economy. Further export gains in coming months will prompt businesses to boost spending on plant and equipment, helping support the rebound, according to economist Akiyoshi Takumori.

“This confirms that the economy is recovering, led by solid overseas demand,” said Takumori, chief economist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. “Although the level is still low, the recovery will fuel production and make companies more comfortable with increasing investment.”

Today’s data adds to signs of sustained expansion in the first quarter. Factory production rose at the fastest pace since May and the unemployment rate fell to a 10-month low in January. The Finance Ministry said last week capital spending also fell 18.5 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31. While that was the 11th straight decline, it was also the smallest drop in a year.

The current-account gap increased by 1.032 trillion yen from a year earlier, the second highest jump since comparable data were made available in 1986, the government said. Exports rose 40.6 percent in January from a year earlier, also the biggest advance since 1986, and imports advanced 7.1 percent.

China Shipments

Shipments to China rose at the fastest pace since 1985 in January, while exports to the U.S. advanced for the first time in more than two years, customs-cleared trade data showed last month. Today’s figures don’t include regional breakdowns.

The export rebound has been driven in part by favorable year-on-year comparisons. Shipments had plunged last year in the wake of a global credit crunch caused by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Japan posted its first current-account deficit in 13 years in January 2009 as a result.

Overseas shipments of Nissan Motor Co. cars rose 29.6 percent in January, while Mitsubishi Motor Corp. shipped more than double the amount of vehicles compared with the same month a year ago, according to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Economy Expanded

The Cabinet Office will say the economy expanded at a revised 4 percent annualized pace last quarter, according to the median estimate of 27 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Preliminary figures showed 4.6 percent growth. The report is due on March 11 at 8:50 a.m. in Tokyo.

“Right now the economy is being pulled by exports and inventory adjustments,” Naoki Iizuka, a senior economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo, said before the report was released. “Once we enter the second quarter, manufacturers’ capital spending will be a new contributor to the economy’s growth.”

A separate report today showed bank lending fell for a third consecutive month in February, sliding 1.6 percent from a year earlier, as companies cut spending.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the current-account surplus widened to 1.71 trillion yen in January. Exports rose 8.8 percent from December, and imports climbed 2.3 percent.

The income surplus, the difference between money earned abroad and payments made to foreign investors in Japan, narrowed 8.1 percent to 911 billion yen in January from a year earlier, the ministry said.

The current account tracks the flow of goods, services and investment income between Japan and its trading partners. It includes trade not shown in the customs-cleared balance.

Source

Quote and apply online or speak with an agent in your area. Compare health insurance plans for individuals and families.

Donations via text message raised $7 million for the American Red Cross’s Haiti relief efforts as of 11 p.m. Thursday.

Soon after a 7.0-magnitude quake struck near capital city Port-au-Prince late Tuesday, the Red Cross mobilized fundraising efforts via social networking site Twitter. Just before midnight, @RedCross tweeted: "You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in #haiti."

And so far a staggering 700,000 customers have done just that, across all wireless networks including AT&T (T, Fortune 500), Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500), Sprint (S, Fortune 500) and T-Mobile.

"These are donors who are typically the hardest to reach: young people," said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. "They’re reacting to something that affects them and realizing their few dollars can make a difference. Texting has opened up a whole new world for philanthropy."

Mobile giving isn’t new, but it’s been in the spotlight since the Haiti earthquake hit. In fact, the $5 million that’s been raised so far by the Red Cross far exceeds the nearly $4 million that was donated to all charities by mobile texts in all of 2009, Nelson said.

Organizations including the ASPCA, Feed the Children and World Land Trust all have 5-digit numbers to which subscribers can text donations at any time.

Nelson said Verizon Wireless (VZ, Fortune 500) has a long-standing policy that it does not charge subscribers for texts to make charitable donations, and added that 100% of the donated funds are passed on to the Red Cross. T-Mobile also said its subscribers can text Haiti donations for free.

News reports earlier Thursday said AT&T (T, Fortune 500) was charging subscribers for their texts. But a spokesman said Thursday afternoon that the company had updated its systems in the morning to make texts sent to Haiti relief efforts free of charge, and that the change would cover those who donated yesterday.

On Thursday afternoon Sprint said it will continue to treat donation texts "like any other text message for now," but by that evening the company did an about face and said it would issue a waiver on text message fees for specific Haiti mobile giving donations. 

Source

Get instant affordable car insurance rates from multiple carriers online.

More details of a bitter dispute between the publisher of Canada’s largest metropolitan newspaper chain and its lenders, mainly Canada’s big banks, have emerged in court documents.

The documents filed in Ontario Superior Court of Justice provide an unusual glimpse into the infighting that went on before CanWest Limited Partnership filed for bankruptcy protection last Friday, owing $1.5 billion.

In a frank exchange of letters, Leonard Asper, chief executive officer of CanWest Global Communications Corp. and CanWest Media Inc., accuses the newspaper group’s secured lenders of putting their interests ahead of other creditors.

Asper also pleads for more time, noting improving economic conditions can only benefit everyone involved.

Asper, whose late father Israel (Izzy) Asper founded CanWest Global, says in a Jan. 4 letter to the lenders that he "profoundly disagrees" with their decision to push the newspaper chain into an "early filing." He says the move could result in "undue and unnecessary harm" to some of the company’s long-time suppliers.

Asper said the court filing could end up costing CanWest LP (the entity that holds the company’s major newspapers) as much as $45 million in fees.

Those fees will go to the same "advisory groups that are driving the process," Asper says in the letter addressed to the Bank of Nova Scotia, which is acting as the agent for the secured creditors.

While Asper acknowledged that the newspaper chain ran into trouble last May and is in default on certain principal payments, he said the company has since "stabilized."

He asked for six months to come up with a plan "that is fair to all parties," citing employees, suppliers and other unsecured lenders.

"For the first time in 14 months, revenue for the most recent month was ahead of the same month last year," Asper noted.

In a sharply worded response, the Bank of Nova Scotia’s executive vice-president Jane Rowe questions Asper’s authority as chief executive at CanWest Media, owner of the Global TV network, to act on behalf of CanWest Limited Partnership, which owns the newspapers.

Rowe also points out that CanWest LP is behind on at least $100 million in payments on various loans since last May and that the secured lenders, which have the right to recall their loans at any time, have been more than patient.

"LP is insolvent," says the Jan. 6 letter signed by Rowe. "It is plain and obvious that it can not support its massive debt, and that a transaction will have to occur that fundamentally alters the balance sheet of the newspaper business."

The argument between the two parties became moot once CanWest LP filed for bankruptcy court protection two days later, a spokesperson for the company said. However, the exchange provides a glimpse into the factors that went into that decision.

CanWest Limited Partnership, which owns a string of 10 major dailies, plus the National Post, owes its lenders $1.5 billion, according to Dominion Bond Rating Services.

As part of the court filing, the newspaper company, whose papers include the Ottawa Citizen, Montreal’s The Gazette and the Calgary Herald, was put up for sale.

At current valuations it could fetch between $1 billion and $1.5 billion, DBRS analyst Chris Diceman estimates. But it has only one offer in hand, from the secured lenders, for $950 million, the amount those lenders are owed.

Other media and financial companies are expected to take a closer look at CanWest LP.

That could leave the unsecured lenders, such as the holders of CanWest’s 9 3/4 per cent bonds, out in the cold, Diceman said Monday.

"If you get to $1.5 billion, all the creditors get 100 cents on the dollar. But if it’s only worth a billion the banks have the secured debt, the banks get paid first. Anything that’s left over, assuming it’s being sold for cash, they would get very little," Diceman said. "I think that’s what he’s trying to say in his letter."

Diceman noted the secured lenders, a group made up of 184 different entities, was able to get agreement on the bankruptcy court filing from only 48 per cent of its members.

However, Diceman also noted the secured lenders have the right to demand repayment and may be under pressure to reinvest that money where it will generate a better return.

"This is a time where the banks are looking at their capital structures, and the value of their loans, given what’s happening in the financial world," he said, referring to the recent credit crunch. "They’ve got to make sure they can get their capital out."

Other industry insiders say a court-supervised sale process mitigates the risk the secured lenders may be sued by the bondholders.

In his letter, Asper estimates both the newspaper chain and CanWest’s broadcast assets, chiefly Global TV, could suffer combined revenue losses of $40 million due to the perception in advertisers’ minds that the two entities will no longer be doing business together.

The company that holds Global TV, CanWest Media Inc., entered bankruptcy protection last October.

The secured lenders reject Asper’s claim the business will be damaged by the process, with Rowe calling the assertion "unsupported."

Source

Irish house prices may fall for a fourth year in 2010 as the deepest recession in the country’s modern history persists, a survey of economists shows.

Home prices will shrink 9 percent, according to the median of six estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. Prices have already fallen 27 percent from their peak in early 2007, based on a monthly index by Dublin-based Irish Life & Permanent Plc.

Ireland’s economy shrank about 7.5 percent last year, almost twice the euro-region average, as a real-estate slump spread into the rest of the economy. That pushed up unemployment and forced the government to bail-out lenders led by Allied Irish Banks Plc and Bank of Ireland Plc. Gross domestic product may shrink 0.8 percent in 2010, marking a third annual contraction, the survey showed.

“The economy is contracting, there’s still housing oversupply there,” said Dermot O’Leary, chief economist at Goodbody Stockbrokers in Dublin. “It’s hard to say we’ve reached a floor.”

Ireland’s recovery will lag behind the revival of many of its euro-area neighbors as companies from Aer Lingus Group Plc to Danske Bank A/S cut jobs, restraining consumer demand. The jobless rate may increase to 13 percent this year from 11.8 percent in 2009, the survey showed.

“It’s going to be a tough one,” Mark Bourke, chief executive officer of Dublin-based IFG Group Plc, said in Dublin yesterday. “There’s very little to indicate there will be a major recovery.”

Budget Gap

In addition to the economic slump, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan is facing a widening budget deficit and is cutting the wages of government workers and welfare payments business card. The actions won’t be enough to reduce the gap this year, according to the survey. Economists see the deficit averaging 11.6 percent of GDP in 2010, little changed from 2009’s 11.7 percent.

Ireland’s fiscal problems are partly related to the government’s reliance on property-related tax revenue during the boom that has since dried up. The European Commission has given Ireland until 2014 to reduce the budget gap to a limit of 3 percent of output.

“I’m confident. We as a country are far better in adversity,” Smurfit Kappa Group Plc Chief Executive Officer Gary McGann said at a Dec. 15 press briefing in Dublin. “We screw it up in the good times.”

There may be some pick-up in economic growth the second half of this year, in tandem with a continuing recovery in overseas demand, economists said, echoing forecasts from the government. The global economy is gathering strength after central banks around the world trimmed borrowing costs close to zero and injected billions of dollars in stimulus measures.

Confidence in the world economy held near a record high in December and the MSCI World Index has surged 71 percent since reaching a 2009 low on March 9. Ireland’s benchmark ISEQ index has gained 60 percent in the same period.

“Export growth is likely to return in a significant way in 2010,” said Rossa White, chief economist at Dublin-based stockbroker Davy. “Second, consumer spending will bottom early in the year and expand slightly as the year progresses.”

Source

Biotech stocks took a turn for the worse in 2009 as the major players dealt with regulatory, manufacturing and political issues as well as a deep recession, but their fortunes could turn in the new year if they get added patent protection.

They were the exception in what was otherwise a bullish year for health care stocks, which benefited as investors sought defensive plays in a turbulent market.

Biotech stocks were the laggards of the Standard & Poor’s 500 Health Care index, on track to post a nearly 8 percent loss for the year, while the rest of the health care sector has logged gains of up to 66 percent, according to FactSet.

The decline in bellwethers such as Amgen and Genzyme was a key factor in weighing down the overall sector. On a broader scale, concerns included a backlog of drug approvals at the Food and Drug Administration, a decline in buyout activity, and fears over health care reform.

While the S&P 500 index is on track to gain about 25 percent in 2009, its large biotech components are down about 7.8 percent. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index, with a broader array of biotech companies, rose 17 percent, but that pales in comparison with the broader Nasdaq composite, which is set to gain about 45 percent.

Pharmaceutical companies, which saw a flurry of buyout and merger activity, are among the strongest performers with a 25 percent boost, a reversal from a lackluster 2008. But the lines between pharmaceutical and biotech companies are diminishing through a range of buyout and development deals. Traditional pharmaceuticals are made by synthesizing chemicals, while biotech-based drugs are made using living cells.

Meanwhile, hospital operators and insurers are on track to rally 62 percent, despite the recession, on hopes that health care reform in Washington could result in more insured patients and revenue in the future.

Source

Home remodelers are getting less bang for their bucks. For the fourth straight year, renovation jobs have added less to resale values relative to their costs, according to an annual Remodeling Cost vs. Value Report released this week by the National Association of Realtors.

The average remodeling job cost $50,908 in 2009 and added $32,497 to the value of the home, a ratio of 63.8%. That was down from a cost-to-value ratio of 67.3% in 2008, when the average was $49,866 and the added value was $33,568.

One common renovation, a mid-priced bath remodel, for example, runs an average of $16,142 and adds only $11,454 to the resale value of a house — recouping just 71% of its cost. In 2008, the same job cost less — $15,899 — and typically added $11,857 to the home’s value, recouping 74.6%.

The most financially successful jobs are smaller-scale, lower-cost renovations that improve the exterior appearance of homes. In this down real estate market, curb appeal is king.

"Once again, this year’s report highlights the importance of a home’s first impression," said NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox & Associates in Tucson, Ariz.

Ron Phipps, a real estate broker in Rhode Island, said how the house looks from the outside is more important than ever.

"If you’re driving down the street and the house doesn’t have great appeal, it doesn’t matter how nice it is inside," he said.

But here’s the kicker: Clients are savvier than ever in their shopping. Even though the costs of home improvements are less likely to be returned on resale than they have been in prior years, sellers may still have to bite the bullet and do the remodeling if they want their house to sell at all, he said.

"It’s kind of intriguing," said Phipps. "Buyers are using the unimproved houses to negotiate lower prices, but they wind up buying the remodeled homes."

So, if there are two similar houses in the area, buyers will use the listing price of the one that has not gone through a metamorphosis to get the seller of the renovated house to slash their price. Buyers want to pay for the caterpillar but get the butterfly.

Seller must play along if they want to make deals. "You get to sell the house more quickly if you do the renovations," Phipps said.

Biggest pay-offs

The major job that returns most in resale value is an upscale replacement of siding using fiber-cement. The job costs an average of $13,287 but increases home value by $11,112, or 83.6%. A vinyl siding replacement returns 79.9% of costs.

Adding a basement bedroom is also fairly cost effective, averaging $49,346 but adding $40,992 in value, an 83.1% return.

"Increasing livable square footage with a new deck or an attic bedroom is usually more valuable than just remodeling existing space," Phipps said.

The return on investment for some jobs varies greatly by region.

In New England, where winter are long and cold, vinyl window replacements reap a better return than they do in the warm South Atlantic region, where poorly insulated windows don’t mean as much expensive heat leaking away.

So, although replacement windows cost more in New England — an average of $11,155 — they add $9,152 to home values there, recouping 82.3% of their cost. In the South Atlantic states, they cost $9,705 but add just $7,417 to home values, 76.4% of their cost.

On the other hand, buyers in the South Atlantic seem to reward sellers for adding living space more than they do in New England. Maybe thrifty Yankees hate having to heat those extra rooms.

Finishing a basement returns 84.4% of its $55,357 cost in the South Atlantic and only 64% of the $65,715 New Englanders spend for the job.

Among the remodeling jobs faring the worst in return on investment were large, upscale kitchen remodels. They cost an average of $111,794 in 2009 and added $70,641 in recoupable value, just 63.2%.

That was down a whopping 7.5 percentage points from their 70.7% return on investment in 2008 . At the height of the housing boom, in 2005, upscale kitchen renovations returned more than 80% of their costs.

"A lot of the things that, historically, had huge value, don’t have as much today," said Phipps. "If you want to redo a kitchen, it may no longer make as much sense to use upscale appliances — Viking ranges, Sub-Zero refrigerator. Buyers may not pay any more than they would for a home with GE appliances instead."

Of course, most remodeling jobs are done to please homeowners. Any increase in home value is a bonus, not an end in itself. But for anyone thinking of selling in the near term, keeping an eye on the bottom line is always a good idea. 

Source

Chevron Corp.’s $40 billion Australian natural gas project will drive a global hunt for construction workers and has prompted calls to ease immigration rules to prevent labor shortages and cost overruns at energy and mining projects fueling the country’s economy.

Contractors for Chevron and partners Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc in the Gorgon liquefied natural gas plant plan to pay premiums of as much as 40 percent for welders, pipe fitters, project managers and engineers, recruiters said. They expect to hire in the Middle East, Latin America and Europe.

Gorgon is the largest of more than a dozen LNG ventures in Australia targeting Asian demand for cleaner-burning fuels. It will compete for staff with Woodside Petroleum Ltd., which said Nov. 20 the cost of its $12 billion Pluto LNG project may surge by as much as $1 billion, partly because of labor expenses.

“This doesn’t bode well for Australia’s mega projects,” Woodside Chief Executive Officer Don Voelte said in a Nov. 25 interview at the Perth headquarters of the country’s second- largest oil and gas producer. “It’s going to be a stretch when more than one company is trying to build these things.”

The Chevron and Woodside investments are among more than $90 billion of resources projects expected to generate about 40,000 construction jobs in Western Australia alone, a state government report shows. Voelte wants the federal government to relax immigration regulations for overseas workers and has started an equity incentive plan to retain staff.

Labor ‘Race’

“For Woodside we believe it is a race to capture or not lose the workforce to Chevron, a significant risk for Woodside’s growth plans,” JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Mark Greenwood wrote in a Nov. 25 report.

About 80 natural resource ventures to be built in the next decade may increase demand for skilled workers by as much as 70 percent, Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said in a Nov. 30 speech in Perth to mark the start of construction of Gorgon on Barrow Island, a nature reserve about 50 kilometers (31 miles) off the northwestern coast.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has tasked a group of government, immigration and industry officials to help companies such as Chevron and BHP Billiton Ltd. find 70,000 workers in the next decade, making Gorgon its top priority.

“A series of cost overruns could discourage future investments,” Gary Gray, chairman of the Rudd-appointed group and Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia, said by phone. “The urgency is to ensure as best as we can the adequacy of labor to deliver projects on time and on budget.”

Wage ‘Premium’

About 80 percent of oil and gas industry employers in Australia said in a survey they intend to increase salaries in the next 12 months, Matt Underhill, managing director at recruiting firm Hays, said from Sydney. Professionals in the pipeline industry currently earn $191,000 annually on average in Australia, he said.

“The expertise is specialized, so there’s going to be a premium paid for that type of labor,” said John Hirjee, an analyst at Deutsche Bank AG in Melbourne same day payday loans. Labor may account for 10 to 20 percent of costs at Australian LNG projects, he said.

Contractors may offer workers as much as 40 percent more than they could earn in Sydney to entice them to Barrow Island, said John Downing of Downing Teal Pty. The company and other recruiting firms hiring for ventures including Gorgon will extend their search to the Middle East and Latin America, he said.

Serbian Sparks

Leighton Holdings Ltd., whose units have won A$1.3 billion of Gorgon work, has in the past hired electricians in Serbia and welders in South Korea, said spokesman Justin Grogan.

Officials with Western Australia’s Department of Training and Workforce Development have met with Chevron to discuss labor needs, Simon Walker, an executive director at the department, said in e-mailed comments.

The department is working on a proposal to tackle the looming shortage and “strategic immigration will be a key consideration factored into the plan,” he wrote.

“Capacity constraints can lead to escalating labor costs, increasing prices and ultimately, they can threaten the viability of enterprises, which negatively affects economic growth and the well-being of the population,” Walker said.

A Chevron advertising campaign to tout Gorgon includes a television commercial with the line “creating thousands of jobs and providing opportunities for generations to come.”

‘Sexy’ Gorgon

It’s a “sexy project” that should have an advantage in securing labor, Colin Beckett, the venture’s general manager, said on Barrow Island in October. A thousand applicants have chased 30 or 40 positions in some cases, he said. Welders and instrument technicians will prove harder to find.

Conditions for those living on Barrow Island, where average temperatures reach as high as 34 degrees Celsius (93 Fahrenheit), will be improved by access to the Internet, cable television, gyms, swimming pools and a golf driving range.

“We think Barrow Island will be attractive to a lot of people,” Beckett said.

One Gorgon contractor is offering A$300,000 ($280,000) for a manager to assess risk and as much as A$135,000 for a contracts administrator, according to advertisements placed by Downing Teal. Engineers will earn “well into six figures,” John Downing said.

A labor shortage that confronted Australian mining and energy during a previous boom is set to return BHP Chief Executive Officer Marius Kloppers said last month. “Just two short years ago there was a massive talent gap in the resources industry,” he said in a Nov. 18 speech. “I believe this gap will return along with demand.”

Gas project developers have built the risk of rising labor bills into their plans and are having LNG processing units built in lower-cost Asian countries and reassembled in Australia to cut expenses, Deutsche Bank’s Hirjee said.

“That’s not to say these cost blow-outs may not happen,” he said. “They could.”

Source

Oil futures sank more than 2% on Friday as investors worried about Dubai World’s debt woes and moved into safe-haven assets including the dollar.

Crude oil for January delivery fell $1.91, or 2.45%, to $76.05 a barrel.

"Money market players are generally moving away from risk, and much of that for now is due to uncertainty over the financial systems, specifically in reference to Dubai," said Brenda Sullivan, head of research at Sucden Financial in London.

Dubai World, the state-owned investment firm, requested an extension on $60 billion in debt payments and triggered credit concerns across world financial markets. The debt was used to feed a construction boom, but the Middle East country was challenged by a real estate crunch. (See correction below).

"A delay of repayments from Dubai World wouldn’t necessarily affect crude oil production, however it would impact the sentiment on financial stability and the financial strength of a number of different institutions," Sullivan said. "There have been reports of exposure by a number of banks, specifically HSBC and Standard Chartered among others that may have exposure to financial instruments related in Dubai World."

Dubai’s move threatened Wall Street’s confidence, and U.S. stocks were set to open lower Friday after ending higher Wednesday. U.S. markets were closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Oil was also weakened by a stronger dollar. The greenback gained ground Friday versus its rivals, after sliding to a 15-month low Wednesday.

Crude oil, like other commodities, is priced in dollars, and a stronger buck weighs on prices.

Gasoline prices. The national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gas decreased to $2.632, down one tenth of a cent from the previous day’s $2.633, according to motorist group AAA. This is the fifth consecutive decline.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Dubai World. 

Source

NEW YORK–As U.S. consumers compile their holiday shopping lists, Motorola Inc.’s Droid smartphone is expected to feature prominently, at the expense of Palm Inc.’s Pre and Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry.

Heavy marketing by Verizon Wireless will help sales of what Motorola hopes is its comeback phone, though the Droid will still lag by far the total sales of BlackBerry or Apple Inc’s iPhone, analysts say.

U.S. market leader Verizon Wireless, owned by Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, is also looking for a bit of a comeback itself, having lost market share in the third quarter to iPhone carrier AT&T Inc.

"It sounds like early feedback from Droid has been pretty positive," said JPMorgan analyst Michael McCormack. "There’s no question that we’ll see better results from Verizon" than in the third quarter.

Motorola is expected to sell 500,000 to 1 million units of the Droid in the fourth quarter, according to estimates from four analysts. That would be a good start for a company that has been losing ground to rivals for more than two years.

"Droid’s eating into competitor phone sales at Verizon," said Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder, adding that Verizon’s Droid promotions are a problem for RIM.

He said that RIM does not have as exciting a product line this holiday season as it did a year ago, when the BlackBerry Storm was the highest-profile phone on Verizon’s network.

The Storm attracted attention because it was RIM’s first touchscreen phone, whereas the latest batch of BlackBerrys are mostly just upgrades of older phones, analysts said.

Reuters News Agency

Source

Air Canada has become the first Canadian airline to offer in-flight Internet access to at least some of its passengers.

The airline launched a 10-week trial period Friday, during which select flights on the Montreal-Los Angeles and Toronto-Los Angeles routes will offer Web surfing.

Access will cost $9.95 (U.S.) for a laptop and $7.95 for smartphones and PDAs.

The service, known as Gogo, will initially be available only when flying over the territorial U.S.

At the end of the 10-week trial on Jan. 29, the airline will consider expanding the service to other routes.

A spokesperson for Air Canada said a full launch of the service will depend on the outcome of the trial, regulatory approval and developing the necessary ground infrastructure in Canada to provide a domestic network.

Initially, the system will be available on Aircell, a U.S.-only high-speed mobile network for aviation. Air Canada said it hopes to assist in the development of a Canadian air-to-ground network in the near future.

The airline’s chief domestic competitor, WestJet, said it has no immediate plans to offer wireless on its flights but said it will continue to evaluate the concept.

In-flight Internet access through the Gogo network is already available on some U.S. airlines, including Virgin America, Delta, AirTran and American Airlines.

With files from Reuters

Source