Masumi Suga Kiyotaka Matsuda write:   The molecules of plant fibers are being transformed into a light-weight material five times stronger than steel that can be used to make everything from auto parts to electronic displays.

No wonder the technology, called cellulose nanofiber, has piqued the interest of executives in Japan, where manufacturers in the world’s third-largest economy import almost all the metal and fuel they need.

While development is in the early stages, the government estimates domestic sales may be worth about 1 trillion yen ($8.3 billion) in 15 years.

“Cellulose nanofiber itself could be an ace-in-the-hole for Japan’s industry,” said Hiroyuki Okaseri, a senior pulp and paper analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. in Tokyo.

At a time when developed countries are looking for ways to curb carbon emissions, Japan sees commercial development of a plant-based building material as an attractive option to metals that require fossil fuels to mine, transport and process ore. The steel industry is the nation’s top polluter among manufacturers, accounting for more than 40 percent of industry emissions, government data show.

Leading the charge to a plant-based alternative are companies connected with the paper industry in Japan, where about 70 percent of the island nation is covered with forests. They’re looking for new markets and revenue as Japan’s shrinking population and the shift to more online content erode demand for books, newspapers and paper documents.
Seiko PMC Corp., a maker of chemicals for the paper industry, is offering potential customers cellulose nanofiber samples made at a pilot plant that began operating last year in Ibaraki prefecture, north of Tokyo.
Developing cellulose nanofiber has gotten the backing of the government under measures enacted by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intended to revive Japan’s stagnant economy.

The trade ministry has asked for 450 million yen for the year starting April 1 to develop the manufacturing process and study how the material can be used. In cooperation with the auto industry, the Ministry of the Environment sought 3.8 billion yen to assess the potential for improved fuel efficiency and lower emissions by using the lighter-weight material in vehicles.

While replacing steel won’t happen immediately, car bodies made of cellulose nanofiber are a possibility, according to Kentaro Doi, director of the environment ministry’s climate-policy division. The economy ministry estimates automotive uses could account for as much as 60 percent of the 1 trillion yen market within 15 years. That figure could rise many times when markets outside Japan are considered, Watanabe said.

Competition to develop new materials for the auto industry is heating up as stricter emissions rules force companies to look for ways of making their vehicles more fuel efficient, including with materials that weigh less than metal.

Corporate training from America’s most famous improv company.   An opportunity for artists of all sorts?

Pro-independence parties in Spain’s Catalonia region have won an absolute majority in regional elections.

The main separatist alliance and a smaller nationalist party won 72 seats in the 135-seat regional parliament.

However, the pro-independence parties fell just short of getting 50% of the vote, winning 1.9 million out of 4 million ballots cast.

The separatists say the victory gives them a clear mandate to form an independent Catalan state.

Spain’s central government in Madrid has pledged to challenge any unilateral moves towards independence in court.

Joshua Keefe writes: Pope Francis’ ’historic visit to the city could be a gift from God for street vendors and small businesses.

Enterprising merchants have already started to cash in on His Holiness’s arrival, hawking a wide array of papal swag — from solar-powered pontiff figurines to key chains and buttons of the beloved Catholic leader.

The $25 “Solar Pope” statues were lighting up registers at the West Village home-goods store Kikkerland.

“We’ve been getting a lot of attention. Our sales have definitely increased,” store employee Alex Holland, 25, said of the statues, which wave at passersby. “People seem to really like them.”

Pope Francis merchandise was also selling briskly in tourist-heavy parts of Midtown and near St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where he will celebrate Mass.

Two blocks away at souvenir shop Grand Slam New York, magnets, T-shirts and umbrellas with the pope’s image sold faster than indulgences during the Middle Ages.

“The [$6] magnets have been selling very good,” the store’s manager, John Palha, 52, said just after he sold two pope shirts for $10 apiece.

Pope mania has also been inspiring peddlers to give back.

Christopher Burrus, 53, hawked $3 prayer cards of Pope Francis at a table set up a couple blocks from St. Patrick’s. The retired cook said that a nearby Episcopal church that feeds the homeless will get some of the money he makes.

“I’ve agreed to donate $70 of my proceeds to the church, but I might give more,” he said.

While many merchants saw the visit as a blessing, some were praying that street closures wouldn’t hurt business.

Leonid Bershidsky writes:  Deezer, the Paris-based music streaming service, will be the first company in that budding industry to go public. Its initial public offering prospectus, for a share sale toward the end of the year, provides fascinating insight into how the streaming business works — or rather, how it could work.

The service is an important global player (though it isn’t well-known in the U.S., where it launched last year). It operates in 180 countries and boasts 3.8 million revenue-generating subscribers. Spotify, the streaming industry leader, claims “more than 20 million.” Apple Music has only reported 11 million trial subscribers so far. Thanks to the IPO filing, though, Deezer is the only company in the industry to provide validated numbers.

Of the 3.8 million, only 3 million actually listen to music from the Deezer catalog — the industry’s biggest, with 35 million tracks, 5 million more than Spotify or Apple Music. The rest are so-called “inactive bundle subscribers.” Deezer sells subscriptions bundled with various devices, such as audio equipment. About 1.5 million such customers use the service at least once a month. Another 1.5 million heard about the service or saw its advertising before subscribing.

This user base brings in about 96 percent of Deezer’s revenue. The rest comes from advertising, played to non-paying users. In the six months ended June 30, it made 93 million euros ($104 million) in revenue and paid back 76.4 percent of that to rights owners — a bit more than the 70 percent Spotify says it returns or the 71.5 percent claimed by Apple. The gross margin isn’t bad, but it’s easily eaten up by development, marketing and administrative expenses. For the six months ended June 30, Deezer reported a 12 million euro loss, practically unchanged from the same period last year, though revenue increased 41 percent.

This is standard for the industry. Spotify, too, loses money. Apple Music hasn’t even started charging subscribers yet. 

Both Deezer and Spotify hoped that their user bases eventually would be big enough for revenue growth to overtake increased development and marketing budgets. It’s not really happening, though: Costs are growing in step with revenue. So the services keep putting off their break-even point. In the IPO filing, Deezer uses these industry revenue projections from Enders Research:

It’s probably true that streaming revenues will surpass those from sales of CDs and vinyl records, as well as those from downloads from stores such as iTunes. In the U.S., streaming has already beaten physical sales, and downloads will probably yield leadership next year because they’re dropping. Streaming is growing even faster in Europe — in Sweden, Spotify’s home country, it accounts for 70 percent of recorded music revenue, and in France, Germany and the U.K., listeners also are switching to streaming services. So Enders’ prediction that streaming will become the leading channel for music sales globally in 2018 is probably conservative. It’s far from certain, though, that total music sales will start growing this year: They’ve been on their way down since 2012. 

Compared with popular music’s heyday, the industry is far less influential and less interesting. Larger-than-life stars are hard to come by — there’s no new Michael Jackson or Kurt Cobain, no new giant bands such as U2 or Radiohead. 

Yet Deezer is betting on that growth and, at the same time, hoping that people will subscribe to more than one service. It may be right: I now use three services because my favorite music — including Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, German and French groups — isn’t all available on any single outlet. Yet there is a tremendous amount of overlap between the biggest players’ catalogs: After all, they deal first with the same big record companies and then with smaller publishers if they have the resources left.

France is the biggest market for the Paris-based company, just as Spotify is especially popular in Scandinavia. It’s possible that, with the exception of Apple, which has a large user base throughout the world, successful companies will be strong in their home territories, providing access to the music that people there most enjoy. That, however, would limit user base growth.

Deezer hopes the IPO will value it at 1 billion euros. That’s a much more modest number than Spotify’s valuation of $8 billion from its latest funding round, and it should be achievable — streaming is clearly the music industry’s future, and Apple, despite its enormous power, won’t be able to eliminate all the competition.

The lack of great content that could boost interest in streaming, and in popular music in general, remains the biggest problem. Streaming may have contributed by making is next to impossible for new artists to make any money from recording their music. Deezer, Spotify, Apple Music and others are taking over a shrinking market, so profits will remain elusive.

With shaky stock markets, a devalued currency and decreasing foreign investment, everyone agrees the Chinese economy is not the bright spot it used to be.