It is 6 00 here in london. Bloomberg reporters are standing by across the world, ready to deliver the stories that will drive your day. Caroline has the details on the insider who may be taking the helm at microsoft. Hans nichols is environment with different earnings reports from google and amazon. He is also looking at the pricey ads for the super bowl. Hannah kearney has more on the rebound in revenue at lvmh. Ryan chilcote lookahead to a meeting. He tells us why a couple of beers could breathe life into europes industry. John ferro is sizing up competition ahead of bt earnings. Plus, the Lunar New Year kicks off today. We are taking a look at where in the world an estimated 100 million Chinese Tourists are taking their spending power for the weeklong holiday. We talk to the founders of the Hotel Booking site, mr. And mrs. Smith. Com next hour. Microsofts fivemonth long ceo search may finally be coming to an end. The board is said to be making Satya Nadella the new chief. He is the head of the companys and her present cloud unit. The board is also said to be considering any chairman to take over for bill gates. Here with more is caroline hyde. Potentialt with the ceo, you met him recently. I did, in december. , very softlyng man spoken, interested, interesting. Not forthright, not a huge presence. He was very nice, very welcoming. Very easy to talk to. He could become the third ceo at microsoft has ever had. This is a company with more than a 40 year history. Only ever been led by bill gates and Steve Ballmer. After five long months, we have whittled our way down from more than a hundred candidates. Gone is tony bates, he is not going to be ceo. Neither is chief operating officer kevin turner. It could be a man who has been at microsoft for more than 20 years. In 1992. Ella joined he is at the forefront of the development for microsoft at the moment. Benefits in that business ,elped drive the revenues didnt they . It doubled in the last quarter. These cloud offerings are growing. Since he took over the server unit, he has grown revenues there a 20 . Overall, this company is still managing to be a winner in the Technology Space even though it is such an old and huge company. He told me in december how excited he finds it a place to work. Microsoft is an exciting place to be at right now. If you look at what we are doing ,ith our devices and services it is an amazing spot to be in. Both innovating and taking to market and having broad impact across society at large. Very enthusiastic gentleman. Not as large a presence as Steve Ballmer is. Apparently he has a lot of respect among the engineers. It is what they need to see, someone who is respected by the whole of microsoft. Bill gates could be stepping down as chairman. He has been chairman since 1981. He has told us in an interview earlier this month that he wants to work fully on philanthropy. That is his fulltime job. The bill and Melinda Gates foundation. It could be set you nadella oracle it could be or it could be john thompson. Caroline, thanks. Amazon earnings missed estimates as shipping costs hit holiday profits. Hans nichols joins us from berlin. Give us the details. It is a bit of a mixed result. Finally, for amazon, profits outstripped revenues. Yet investors punished it. 20 , thatere only up is the smallest gain they have had in some time, since 2009 and believe. Wantedrs decided they Strong Revenue growth and theyre not as interested in profits. 239 million, at more than twice what they had done before. Strong growth there and yet they dont see the explosive growth on their revenue side. That is why the stock was initially down. Then it came down all the way it climbed a little bit and ended at 5 . There may be some changes to amazon prime, the twoday shipping service, 79 for an annual fee. They may be increasing that i as much as 40. That is because of shipping costs, also the cost of fuel. What we see here is amazon finally having a strong profit for the entire year of 2013. They finally turn a profit. Last year, they had some 40 million in losses. Yet investors are now saying, we want to keep seeing revenue growth. We are less concerned about profits. We will see what happens on when it opens later today in the states. Lets talk about google. Different fortunes at this tech business. They Beat Estimates. Googles story is very simple. They are figuring out mobile ads. They Beat Estimates on the revenue and profit sides. Their stock soared in afterhours trading. We will be looking later on how google plans to monetize and trade off of the ads of ads when it comes to the super bowl. Google is in the business of advertising. They always seem to take a slice. They had a very good holiday quarter, much better than traditional retailers. We saw bad figures from walmart, best buy. It looks like google and the Fourth Quarter in quite a position of strength. Thank you very much. Lvmh reporting just after the close last night, it delivered in two key areas. Manus cranny is here to talk us through the numbers. Is it too early to call a turnaround at lvmh . I think it probably is. What is heartening is, last april we shattered because fashion and leather, the beast of the we vuitton slowed down. They have turned it around a little bit. Leather rise. And for growth. K if you want to look at the we vuitton in the big picture of luxury, they have grown at twice the rate of the market. It is not something that is on the floor. Fashion and leather are important. Turning from canvas to leather. They are moving to less stores, taking the entire experience among brand and product up the value chain so that you get that idea of exclusivity. Perkins and cosmetics saw a doubledigit rise. Cosmetics saw a doubledigit rise. Performance. Od certainly a beginning of a reconstruction in lvmh. What about china . That is going to be key to the global brands. It is. And are you doing in china what is going on in china itself . E know the story, a new regime these is a hard luxury are under pressure. The democratics are demographics are fascinating. In 1995, 90 of all purges aboard done by men. By women. 0 is a newou have got is class, a new lady who is wealthy, who wants main fashion. Fs. Female, fashion addict and fashion forward. You have to get the right product. Need instant apparel, address, a code coat for an event, getting the product right, apparel focus in china is what the Luxury Companies have got to do. Thank you. Decameron and french cameron and david french president Francois Hollande agreed to meet today. Ryan chilcote is following the story. What could two middleaged men enjoy doing more . Speaking, they are going to meet at an airbase and go to a pub. At the top of the agenda is defense. Theyre going to commit 200 million to early developmental work on a drone, looking at building a drone together. The prep work has been done by be a bae. They have a prototype that just flew its first flight late last year. Named after the celtic god of thunder. Gave the u. N. A drone. Last year. It has been used in congo, the crash however. They are also going to talk about missiles and spending 500 Million Pounds to acquire some. Issiles from mbda these would be mounted on helicopters to attract attack ships. Cameron and a number of his ministers have made comments that the french government, high spending, high tax government. How is the relationship between the two countries . I think it has been awkward. The original deal in terms of this was called the lancaster agreement. That came back in 2010. That was cameron and sarkozy. These guys, the fact that cameron has pulled away suggesting that britain would like to cut its own deal, that has been a problem. They have been on the hushhush, cooperating in terms of nukes. They dont talk about that too much. There was a plan for the british to have their at 35 f35 retrofitted so it could be launched from french aircraft carriers. They decided that was too much money. It has been slow in coming. Ryan, thank you. Apparently the french president is bringing his red wine. Will he finished it . Probably not. Photons and john have stories involving sports. Hans and john have stories involving sports. We are talking about how google is selling ads on ads. This is part of the super bowl extravaganza. Even for nonfans like yourself, you can watch the super bowl just for the ads. John ferro, my colleague in london is a real sports guy. I will toss it over to him. Earnings looking at bt and you cant talk about bt without talking about sky. It is a battle for sports rights. You have record acquisitions over at sky for the last quarter , how many customers did bt get . We will find out in about 48 minutes. Thanks. Just ahead, amazon sees signs of trouble in its sales growth outside the u. S. Thenext guest says retailers ability to plan longterm is what sets it apart. Stay with us on countdown. Time for todays company news. Googles fourthquarter sales topped estimates. Thanue rose 11 to more 13 billion. Share at the tech giant are up in after hours trading. Revenue rose 11 to 13 billion. Google finetuned its mobile strategy recently by exiting smartphone manufacturing and selling its motorola handset unit. Yahoo attempts to break into identifies an email hacking attempt. Yahoo is the biggest u. S. Web portal and yahoo mail has more than 100 million daily users. Volkswagen is seeking to hire former daimler executive im Cris Rentschler to head its trucks division. He resigned from mercedesbenz. He previously ran the Truck Division for almost a decade. Welcome back to countdown. Time in london, 6 17. Amazons governance of u. S. Ecommerce isnt translating globally. Sales growth in other countries slow down. With the global ecommerce market expected to grow this year, is amazon thinking longterm . Our next guest says that is exactly what the online retailer is good at. Is stephen mader. Thanks for joining us. Profit and sales missed estimates. It is doing well in the u. S. But its dominance and u. S. Ecommerce doesnt seem to be translating globally quite yet. Why is that . We were a little bit surprised as well at the weakness of their international markets. I think it is really showcasing where their longterm vision is, using that prime membership as the middle point and intersection between the services at amazon. Video, mp3, music and books. A lot of that content that amazon has been investing in hasnt made its way yet. It is investing in longterm r d. Can it keep doing that at the same time reaching its profitability targets . It is quite a balancing act. They have publicly stated they have a five to seven year longterm vision of where they expect to get some of that return on their investments. On the same time, they can also start tweaking some of the profitability questions. They are looking at maybe increasing the cost of prime membership in the u. S. Some of the other firms they have latched like amazon pantry is aimed at lowering the overall cost of shipping. Continuously hit on cost per shipment. Lets talk about the things they are doing. They launched fresh and the united states. It hasnt been launched elsewhere. Are they doing something very different in terms of Online Grocery delivery in the u. S. . What do we have to look forward to when they want lunch when they launch here . It is similar to say in the london area, alcado. The benefit is not just fresh delivery but the whole assortment of everything amazon stocks. You have millions and millions of products. Era focusing very much on last mile fulfillment. This is the logistics of getting it to you very quickly. It is all about speed. For me as a consumer, i also care about the process being easy and making sure i am in when they turn up. Amazon is incredibly focused on that. I think there is always going to be an aspect of price in every conversation. Aboutsingly it is more speed, convenience. We have seen in the u. K. , they have launched sunday delivery. They have been doing that in the u. S. For a bit as well. They are continuously trying to innovate. That is how they can beat the traditional retailers. Thank you. We will get further thoughts on msn and talk about the fortunes of google as well. Stay with us. Welcome back to countdown. Stephen is here, stephen mader. Thats talk about google. It has been a big few weeks when it comes to m a for google. It bought last, you can tell us what that is and remind our viewers. It sold the motorola handset business. ,t invested in this ai company deeper mind. What is it up to . A veryink they have strong perspective on what the future is for google. They are very focused right now on giving back to the business of search, getting back to the business of software and platforms. The part of the acquisition they have been making is an artificial intelligence. Is that because they want us to be able to search for images . Is it going to help improve their image searching or is it about us thinking about something and without even typing, a search appears . I think they are trying to be more predictive about what we are looking for. If you look at what they have done with google now on the android handset, it is about predicting based on what is in your calendar, what you have searched before. Trying to offer you relevant results. The acquisitions they have been making are all about increasing the sophistication around that. They can then charge more for their advertising. How do they feel about hardware . They sold the motorola handset business. The more experimental side of has been experimenting with things like driverless cars. There is a lot of hardware there. Divide between shortterm and longterm. Everything coming out of google x, their innovation lab, that is very longterm of where they see the future going. Some of the motorola divestiture, that was all around we have to make sure we have a handset too. They acquired all the patents that motorola has and now they have divested the hardware business to get back to the core of software. Is this fear of being left behind . Buying nest for instance, is it a fear of being left behind . Investors shouldnt mind placing these bets which might actually not pay off . I think that is a fair assessment. They have a clear vision of sensors being very important. Everyone knows about the Health Center craze. Nest is good at that type of hardware. They have smoke detectors, thermostat, a clear roadmap of where they want to go with the product pipeline. Google sees all of that Data Acquisition being useful. With all of these big tech companies, it is difficult to work out who are the big competitors. They all seem to want to compete with each other in everything. Who are the competitors for google . Is it microsoft, apple, amazon . They overlap. They do. Fournk there is very much businesses going headtohead. Amazon, facebook, google and apple. All of them have such enormous amounts of cash reserves that they are just going after and acquiring new companies. Thank you very much, great to get your thoughts. Just ahead, kickoff isnt until sunday that google has already been cashing in on the super bowl. We will tell you what youtube has to do with it. These other Bloomberg Top headlines today. Six danish ministers quit. The social democrat Prime Minister pushed a 1. 5 billion stake sale. The deal gives Goldman Sachs veto power in exchange for his investment. Football governing body is demanding information on working conditions for the 2022 world cup and qatar. This follows the reported deaths of 185 construction workers last year. They Qatar Committee overseeing the facilities will provide the report in the next two weeks. Lawyers for the u. S. Students amanda knox and her codefendant have valid to appeal their murder convictions to italys highest court. Yesterday an Italian Appeals Court upheld a guilty verdict in the murder of amandas critics remain british roommate. Welcome to countdown. I am mark barton. I am anna edwards. Time in london is 6 31. Broadcasting beverly between bt and sky rivalry between bt and sky. Investors are focusing on the Company Countries and the launched sports channel. Jonathan ferro joins us for more. Pitting these two titans of the u. K. Business scene against each other. I dont think you can talk about one without talking about the other. We saw a record acquisitions at sky. The big question is how well has bt done . I spent almost one billion pounds to get the Champions League rights. The big issue is not the right now but how this plays out in the next couple of years. Just check out how many how much ram your League Rights have ballooned. If you want to buy them, sky paid 1. 6 billion pounds for three seasons. That jumped to 2. 2 billion in 2013. The question is how much will they pay when the next auction comes about . That is at the end of this year at the start of 2015. Look at that inflation. Year back inunds a 92. Now, 560 million. How does sky absorb these costs . Bt is coming hard to push sky out of the way. What is the limit . , whatas asking yesterday would you be prepared to pay . That is the classic question he never wants to answer. He cant give away his hand. They did describe that 40 inflation they saw year on year. They describe that as a oneoff. There is a difference. , this is ainvestor bit of an overhang on both sides. The last thing you want is a race to the bottom, bt putting up a lot of money to push sky out but putting themselves at risk at the same time. You wonder if one day they might come to an agreement. Who knows . It is not just about football either. You could see bt go out there after golf and other sports. Sky was trying to change the game, move things away from sports. Drama, you wonder whether bt is going to get into that. It is not all about tv either. A lot of noise on the sports side of things, but have a look at something that sky is doing. Cozying up with vodafone. There is a big poster in the window that advertises sky sports with any contract on your mobile. Whether that becomes more formal remains to be seen. Bt pushing into skys territory. Sky are pushing back into bts territory on the telephone side of things. Mentioned the two letters bt. It is always, our competition. A much more mature sports broadcaster. Bt have got big ambitions. Thank you very much. Here is a story