we are getting to the look ahead to your
head for Business Week 2016 tell us
what's on tap well this is our third
annual year ahead issue we're doing it
in conjunction with a with a conference
it's always a frightening task to
predict the future so our aim is just to
give readers enough information so they
can evaluate what they're doing as the
year goes on what interest rates has to
be no I mean here all day every day we
talk interest rate predictions so David
loves to point out half of our guests
say who cares me cares let's talk about
it some more well so we make some
predictions on in estrellas based on you
know the bloomberg survey of economists
and some of it is sort of predictable
the idea is that US rates will go up to
1.25 percent by the end of next year
although of course who knows when the
Fed is actually going to raise rates
people are beginning to think instead of
December it might be march but of course
nobody knows and then we have countries
like China and India and Russia lowering
rates as they try to stimulate their
economy I think the idea is that China
will probably go to 4.2 0% not a huge
change but again trying to stimulate
their economy and the UK and EU is
probably going to hold pretty steady not
making money moves at all UK will
probably go up a little bit I know the
next topic number two matters to you
well which is Absalom so Apple has a
complicated situation in China because
just like in the u.s. a lot of people
already have smartphones so growth ins
and smartphone shipments are supposed to
go up maybe one percent and that's down
from twenty percent last year but Tim
Cook still thinks it's a great market
for them he's still investing there he
thinks they'll continue to grow even as
the market slows down they're investing
a lot in hiring engineers to create apps
that are more focused on the Chinese on
the Chinese market they're planning to
open more stores I think they have 24
now they hope to go to 40 by the end of
the year so he is completely doubling
down on China so thursday that they're
big already in china well
how big can they get into I think they
can get a lot bigger in China you know
in China Apple is sort of like a ball
men on steroids they are a much higher
fashion product than they are here and
as the middle class grows in China and
they're very luxury oriented I think the
iphone is surprisingly well positioned
in China despite the fact that they're
literally hundreds of Chinese clones of
the iphone people in China still prefer
apple but there's a slowing of growth
and China overall we've seen and talking
about but there's also is cell phone an
exception to that I think it's an
exception in part because the
government's big focus is on consumption
growth so even though the economy may
slow the government's doing everything
it can to push people to buy stuff and I
think the app iphone is one of the
things they want to buy so it's not
necessarily you think Apple has a
complicated situation the complicated
situation is merely getting in with all
of those consumers on that apple of
apples complicated situation is that
they have to keep executing at
extraordinary scale with hardware which
is not easy look at history they're
doing it they've done it well give us
number three um number three we'll talk
about exon exon incredibly successful
company faces a transition next year
when they'll announce the successor to
Rex Tillerson who will retire in 2017
obviously they're dealing with with
lower oil prices and the prospect that
oil prices are not going to go up a
whole lot next year and they have a
choice to make between focusing on
someone who is in charge of you know
pumping oil and focusing on someone
who's in charge of refining and their
big problem is there isn't a whole lot
more oil in the world to develop right
now they've been stalled in Russia
because of sanctions and so it's a big
challenge ahead for them that's a big
company and a big job for somebody so
hot in doubt bloomberg businessweek's
Ellen thank you so much for
joining us thank you