Media & Entertainment

Kasikorn Securities holds a positive view on PLANB and COM7 shares after COM7's extraordinary general meeting of shareholders resolved to approve the appointment of two new directors nominated by PLANB, namely Mr. Prin and Dr. Pinitjorn, to COM7's board. As a result, PLANB is highly likely to begin recognizing its share of profits from COM7 starting September 17, which should support profit growth in the fourth quarter of 2026 and continue into 2027. The research team maintains a buy recommendation on both stocks, setting a target price of 6.68 baht for PLANB, supported by its well-performing OOH media business, growth in its higher-margin non-OOH business, and full-year recognition of its share of COM7 profits in 2027. The stock also continues to trade below its historical average and below global peer comparisons. For COM7, the research team notes that the response to iPhone 18 Series pre-orders has been relatively good, and therefore expects third-quarter 2026 sales to grow both year on year and quarter on quarter. It maintains a buy recommendation with a target price of 34.12 baht, and views PLANB's average purchase price of 27.44 baht as potentially a suitable level for re-entering an investment.

Snap introduced its SPECS Intelligence AI service alongside expanded real-world trials of its SPECS AR glasses in September 2026. The launch includes enterprise-focused deployments with partners such as Salesforce, Amazon Web Services and NVIDIA targeting industrial, retail and field use cases. Snap is highlighting a privacy-first architecture for SPECS Intelligence AI, limiting data usage for AI training and personalized advertising. The SPECS Intelligence AI rollout and broader AR glasses push are part of a wider shift in how Snap structures its consumer and enterprise ecosystem, extending its technology into real-world use cases across North America, Europe and other regions. The company's AR narrative hinges on whether an expanding AR ecosystem and new services can turn a social app reliant on ads into a broader computing platform with higher-margin revenue.

Meta Platforms raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $130 billion to $145 billion, including principal payments on finance leases, narrowed from a prior $125 billion to $145 billion range in its Q2 2026 report on July 29, 2026. The forward guidance nearly doubles Meta's full-year 2025 capex of $72.215 billion, and Q2 capital expenditures alone reached $31.1 billion, driven by servers, data centers, and network infrastructure. To fund the build, Meta ended Q2 with $90.3 billion in cash and marketable securities and $83.7 billion in debt, and announced a strategic venture with BlackRock to develop a one gigawatt data center in El Paso, Texas. CFO Susan Li said Meta is demand constrained today, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is receiving quite a number of offers at a meaningful premium over what we paid for the compute, framing direct compute sales as one leg of a portfolio that also includes APIs, business agents, productivity tools, and subscriptions. The strain is visible in the quarterly numbers: Q2 free cash flow was $784 million, down 91.31% year over year, and operating margin compressed to 31% from 43%, even as Q2 revenue reached $60.801 billion, up 27.96% year over year and above the $60.286 billion consensus, with advertising revenue of $59.4 billion, up 27%.

Alphabet shares climbed in premarket trade after Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney raised his price objective to $450 from $420, citing new data showing Google's search position has rebounded. In Evercore's most recent poll, 78% of respondents said they used Google as their preferred search engine in August, up from a low of 70% in 2024 and early 2025. Mahaney said Google's search leadership has improved over the last year and lifted his expectations for Google's search revenue through 2028, with his sales and operating income estimates for 2028 now 4% to 5% above the Wall Street consensus. Alphabet also benefited from a Sept. 16 court verdict that fell short of requiring Google to divest its ad-tech division, though the company has been ordered to adjust its advertising tactics and allow monitoring for six years. Tigress Financial also increased its price target to $485 from $415.

DAOL Securities stated that COM7 has notified the resolution of its shareholders' meeting approving two board seats for PLANB, expanding COM7's board structure from seven seats to nine seats, with PLANB receiving two seats, representing a 22% proportion, which is considered to carry control influence. As a result, PLANB will change its recognition of returns from dividends only to the equity method immediately, driving significant profit growth. The research team holds a positive view on the COM7 deal, in which PLANB currently holds an 11.01% stake, because it helps increase media capacity and expand the customer base, extending the growth of OOH revenue in the long term. Net carry under the equity method is expected at 53 million baht in 2026E before turning to 422 million baht in 2027E. However, the research team's assumptions still exclude upside from synergies. The new target price for 2026E is 7.40 baht and for 2027E is 10.5 baht, based on 26x PE. The research team maintains its net profit estimate for 2026E at 1,258 million baht, up 14% YoY, but still excludes the COM7 deal from its estimates. It also maintains a buy recommendation and keeps the target price at 7.10 baht, based on 2026E PER of 26x. Currently PLANB trades at 2026E PER of 22.7x. The research team continues to favor PLANB for its leadership in the OOH media business and expects it to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the economic recovery and advertising spending.

Upexi said it expects staking revenue to more than cover its ongoing cash expenses on a go-forward basis after cutting full-time employees from 59 a year ago to just 10 and refinancing a credit facility rate from 11.5% to 7.5%. On the company's Q4 2026 earnings call, CEO Allan Marshall said the quarter ending June 30, 2026 marked the one-year anniversary of its Solana treasury strategy, with roughly $20 million of debt extinguished in June and cash of $5.8 million at June 30, up 65% sequentially. CFO Andrew Norstrud said the company held approximately 2.34 million Solana tokens with a cost basis of approximately $360.3 million and an average cost per token of $154, with approximately 95% of those tokens staked, alongside $165.3 million in Solana, $180.1 million in total assets and $45.6 million in working capital. For the fiscal year, Norstrud reported approximately $17.4 million in digital asset revenues, $195.1 million in unrealized losses, $11.7 million in realized losses and a gain on extinguishment of debt of approximately $10.3 million, with a net loss of $246.1 million, or $3.87 per share. The company repurchased approximately 2.9 million shares at an average weighted price of $0.96 per share for total consideration of approximately $2.8 million, and after year-end issued approximately 2.5 million shares via its ATM for approximately $2.5 million in gross proceeds.

LiveOne has acquired 1.47 million common shares of PodcastOne since March 31, 2026 at an average price of $2.81 per share, raising its total ownership to 20.8 million PodcastOne shares. The purchases include 374,109 shares acquired in the first half of fiscal 2027. PodcastOne's cash position stood at more than $6.5 million as of today. Bankers are reviewing inbound potential M&A and monetization options, and PodcastOne and its bankers are exploring a potential consolidation with LiveOne into a single public company, a combination that could yield $3 million in potential annual synergies along with public-company cost savings.

The Federal Communications Commission approved foreign ownership in Paramount Skydance's planned $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. The FCC granted Paramount's request to allow financing of more than 25% for the transaction, waiving its 25% cap on foreign equity ownership and permitting individual investors to own up to 20% of the equity. The regulator said foreign investors can have no voting stock and will not have any influence, direction, or control over Paramount's content decisions or company management. Paramount said it appreciated the FCC's careful review and was pleased the petition was granted consistent with its established process. The approval comes as the deal has been halted after 12 state attorneys general, led by California, sued to block the mega media deal in July, with a trial scheduled for March; on Tuesday a court ordered Paramount and California Attorney General Rob Bonta to meet on October 14 to try to work on a potential settlement.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on the 17th approved foreign investment in U.S. media giant Paramount Skydance's $110 billion acquisition of rival Warner Bros. Discovery. The FCC regulates foreign investment in U.S. television broadcasting, and said it would waive the 25% cap on foreign equity ownership in this case, allowing individual investors to hold up to 20% of the shares. However, foreign investors may not hold voting shares, and may not exert any influence, direction, or control over Paramount's content decisions or corporate management, nor provide comments or guidance, nor be granted access to non-public data concerning U.S. citizens. Paramount welcomed the approval, stating that the merger will give it the scale and resources needed to compete, invest, innovate, and deliver premium content to audiences around the world. According to Paramount, at the close of the transaction, the family led by billionaire and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and RedBird Capital Partners will jointly hold the largest equity stake and 100% of the voting shares in the combined company, while other shareholders will have no management rights whatsoever. According to the FCC, after the transaction closes, Middle Eastern investors will hold approximately 85% of Paramount's shares, of which 15.1% is expected to be held by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund.

Meta Platforms rolled out Muse, an AI agent that can autonomously send emails, sell a car, and book travel on a person's behalf, Reuters reported on September 9, 2026. The agent, modeled on the open-source system OpenClaw, is available initially only in the U.S. through a dedicated app or WhatsApp, and is designed to access apps across email, calendar, payments, health, shopping, and smart-home categories as the centerpiece of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's "personal superintelligence" strategy. Meta launched Muse with a free tier and $20 and $100 monthly subscription options for heavier users, positioning the product as a new revenue stream beyond advertising. The launch follows a delay from April to improve security, and Meta added an autonomous safety agent that monitors Muse's actions, though internal testing uncovered an incident in which Muse exposed private iCloud photos and employees reported repeated logouts, monitoring failures, and inconsistent performance. Meta expects AI infrastructure spending to exceed $130 billion this year and has seen a 40% increase in technical and security incidents linked to AI, while its hedge fund holder count slipped to 254 in the second quarter from 262 in the first even as combined position value rose to $43.75 billion from $41.70 billion.

Google's Rethink ROI summit in New York spotlighted a widening gap between rapid AI-driven shopping discovery and merchant payment systems that cannot yet complete agent-initiated transactions. The platform's new conversational attributes let retailers feed structured data, including FAQ, compatible accessories, and substitutes, directly into the Shopping Graph, and in early testing with Lululemon, brand-supplied attributes were incorporated into AI Mode recommendations 50% of the time. Demand for such tools is backed by Adobe Analytics data showing an 805% year-over-year increase in AI-driven traffic to retail sites during Black Friday 2025, while Salesforce Cyber Week data confirms retailers with integrated AI agents grew sales 32% faster than those without, and Adobe found those shoppers are 38% more likely to convert. That traffic, however, is colliding with a payment readiness deficit: the TLT LLP Retail Agility survey of the top 100 UK retailers found that while 49% are investing in agentic AI, only 15% say their payment systems are prepared for agent-initiated transactions. Google is attempting to standardize the transaction layer through the Universal Commerce Protocol and the Universal Cart framework, which aim to enable persistent, cross-platform shopping carts across Search, YouTube, and Gmail, and with a 10-week horizon to Black Friday 2026, the next two months will determine which brands move from discovery-focused AI to transaction-ready agentic commerce.

Generac agreed to supply up to $8 billion worth of backup generators for Amazon's data centers, sending its shares up 18% and making it the top performer on the S&P 500. The company also issued a warrant for a stake in itself, according to a securities filing, and analysts said the stock could double in price over the next 12 to 18 months. The broader market closed higher, with the Dow Jones industrial average adding about 300 points, or roughly 0.6%, the S&P 500 gaining about 86 points, or 1.2%, and the Nasdaq composite rising about 1.7%. Intel shares climbed more than 7.5% after South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix said it might team up with the company, following a Reuters report that it could lease part of Intel's long-planned Ohio chip facility or form a venture, though SK Hynix said no decision has been made. Among decliners, Paramount Skydance fell more than 4.6% as a Barclays analyst argued its proposed merger with Warner Brothers could introduce massive financial and operational risks and predicted the company would eventually split up, while Fluence Energy tumbled 15% after cutting its revenue forecast, which analysts attributed to production issues at its Houston facility.

Pinterest is expanding its advertising playbook with new Visual Search Ads, giving brands another way to reach users as they compare products and move closer to a purchase. The new ad format was unveiled Thursday at Pinterest Presents, the company's annual global advertiser summit. Visual Search Ads will place brands directly inside Pinterest search results and pin close-ups, allowing advertisers to appear as users visually browse products, compare options and narrow purchasing decisions. The ads are designed specifically for lower-funnel marketing objectives and will work with Pinterest Performance+, the company's AI-powered advertising suite. Pinterest said the new format will enter beta for eligible advertisers across all of its advertising markets in the coming weeks.

King Gen Public Company Limited, or KGEN, disclosed that Rayong Wire Industries Public Company Limited, or RWI, has taken a stake in KGEN through a private placement subscription of newly issued ordinary shares worth no more than 250 million baht, at a price of no more than 1.35 baht per share, representing approximately 7.68% of the shares after the capital increase, with total investment of no more than 252 million baht. RWI will also receive the right to subscribe to KGEN-W3 warrants in proportion to its existing shareholding, worth no more than 2 million baht. The maximum transaction size of 24.67% qualifies as a Type 3 transaction, which requires approval from a shareholders' meeting by a vote of no less than three-quarters. An extraordinary shareholders' meeting, the first of 2026, has been scheduled for Thursday, October 22, 2026. Khanit Sivachiraprapha, Chairman of the Advisory Board of KGEN, said the partnership will strengthen the domestic supply chain for automotive parts production, in line with the policy of increasing the use of locally made parts in electric vehicle production under cooperation with the CHERY brand. RWI specialises in the production of cold-drawn steel, which is used to make automotive parts. KGEN has so far produced 20,000 vehicles, with EV production capacity of approximately 5,000 vehicles per month, and expects capacity to rise by another 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles in the final three months of the year, bringing total production for the year to around 40,000 vehicles. Year-end bookings are expected to accelerate on the back of the Motor Expo in December, where two to three new electric vehicle models will be unveiled. The company has also signed an agreement to support a transport fleet for J&T Express, including the use of electric pickup trucks for deliveries of no more than 400 kilometres.

Alphabet opened its Google Home smart-home ecosystem to rival AI agents, turning the platform into a broader distribution channel rather than a Gemini-only service. The company's Home MCP server now lets compatible third-party agents such as Claude and OpenClaw inspect connected devices, track their status, execute commands and work with historical household events. The service sits behind Google's Premium Advanced plan, priced at $20 per month or $200 annually, and also requires a Google Cloud project. Google has placed limits around higher-risk actions such as unlocking doors, though opening the system to outside agents introduces a new security variable. Alphabet shares gained approximately 1.5% to $347.91 Thursday, with the stock trading 35.37% above its GF Value estimate of $257.01.

Roundtable, trading on Nasdaq as RTB, announced a 10-year, $1 billion agreement with The Arena Group, now known as Paradium.AI and trading on the NYSE as PAAI, to migrate, operate and monetize Arena's premium media portfolio on Roundtable's AI and DeFi-powered MediaOS. Following deal closure, Roundtable forecasts a $100 million annualized revenue and an EBITDA-positive run rate on a stand-alone basis, with 100 million monthly consumers. Two dozen brands and nearly 100 million consumers will migrate to Roundtable's MediaOS, including TheStreet, Parade, Men's Journal, Athlon Sports, Autoblog and Powder, along with hundreds of professional journalists. The agreements are subject to Roundtable's minority investment in PAAI, $89 million in cash and stock for approximately 49% of PAAI, in a private transaction, and other conditions precedent, which include funding requirements to complete the transactions in the fourth quarter. The partnership reunites PAAI CEO Paul Edmondson with RTB founders James Heckman and Bill Sornsin, who were last teamed in 2020.

Meta Platforms agreed on August 26, 2026 to pay up to $17 billion over 10 years and to overhaul how teenagers use Instagram and Facebook, settling a lawsuit brought by more than 40 states, the District of Columbia, and several territories over claims its platforms fueled social media addiction among young people. The company will roll out a two-hour default daily time limit across both apps, block access between midnight and 6 a.m., mute notifications during school hours, hide like counts, and offer a non-algorithmic feed option. Meta said most default protections will launch within six months, while stricter age-verification tools will take up to a year to build. Teens make up less than 1% of Meta's revenue, so the new restrictions should have a limited direct effect on current advertising revenue, though the changes could weaken engagement metrics and push younger users toward TikTok and YouTube. Florida is pursuing separate litigation, and Meta still faces other active lawsuits over social-media harms.

Bank of America estimates Meta Platforms could save roughly $8.5 billion in 2027 by running AI workloads on its own custom silicon instead of buying third-party chips, an outside analyst estimate rather than company guidance. The figure rests on a specific roadmap: Meta plans to deploy its third-generation MTIA 450 chip, code-named Arke, in the first half of 2027, followed by the higher-performance MTIA 500, or Astrid, later that year, both co-developed with Broadcom and aimed at AI inference workloads. BofA models Meta deploying 5 to 6 gigawatts of owned capacity in 2027 at a total cost of roughly $200 billion, assumes chips make up 60% of that spend, and pegs Meta's custom silicon as about 40% cheaper than third-party equivalents. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan said custom chips optimized for a customer's own workloads outperform any GPU and can do so at half the cost, and confirmed Broadcom will deliver three generations of MTIA accelerators to Meta between now and the end of 2027. Meta's FY2026 capex guidance sits at $130 billion to $145 billion, narrowed from $125 billion to $145 billion, with total expense guidance raised to $165 billion to $169 billion, while Q2 2026 revenue reached $60.80 billion, up 27.96% year over year, on advertising revenue of $59.36 billion.

Match Group has been upgraded to a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), a rating that reflects an upward trend in earnings estimates. The media and internet company is expected to earn $4.13 per share for the fiscal year ending December 2026, which represents no year-over-year change. Over the past three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Match Group has increased 6.4%. The upgrade places Match Group in the top 5% of the more than 4,000 stocks covered by the Zacks Rank system in terms of estimate revisions. Zacks notes that its Rank #1 stocks have generated an average annual return of +25% since 1988.

Roundtable, trading as Nasdaq: RTB, announced a 10-year, $1 billion agreement with The Arena Group, now known as Paradium.AI (NYSE: PAAI), to migrate, operate and monetize Arena's premium media portfolio on Roundtable's AI/DeFi-powered MediaOS. Following deal closure, Roundtable forecasts a $100 million annualized revenue and an EBITDA-positive run rate on a stand-alone basis, with 100 million monthly consumers. Two dozen brands and nearly 100 million consumers will migrate to Roundtable's MediaOS, including TheStreet, Parade, Men's Journal, Athlon Sports, Autoblog and Powder, along with hundreds of professional journalists. The agreements are subject to Roundtable's minority investment in PAAI, $89 million in cash and stock for approximately 49% of PAAI, in a private transaction, and other conditions precedent, which include funding requirements to complete the transactions in Q4. The partnership reunites PAAI CEO Paul Edmondson with RTB founders James Heckman and Bill Sornsin, who were last teamed in 2020.

Snap disclosed that Salesforce is embedding its Agentforce agent platform into its Specs augmented reality glasses, with NVIDIA supplying the artificial intelligence that lets the device interpret what a worker is looking at and pull up relevant company data, and Amazon contributing its cloud unit's assistant for voice-command tasks. Snap also unveiled a Specs Intelligence service, with a separately sold charging case carrying cellular connectivity through carrier partners including Verizon Communications in the U.S. The device was unveiled in June at $2,195, and Snap did not disclose financial terms for any of the tie-ups, so the move prices a positioning change rather than booked business. Snap stock rose about 4% to $5.95 on the news, while Meta Platforms, the incumbent in consumer AR through Ray-Ban Meta and Reality Labs, held steady with shares up 0.4% to $675.88. Snap stock remains down 28% year to date, and Snap has said shipping begins later this fall in the U.S., the U.K., and France, with a Los Angeles shopping-mall try-on experience starting in October.