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Sparsely vaccinated developing countries have been left exposed while shots protect wealthy nations from surges in hospitalizations and deaths

SINGAPORE—The fast-spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus is driving up infections around the world, both in countries that have achieved large-scale vaccination and those that haven’t. There is one crucial difference, though: Vaccines are helping wealthy nations escape steep rises in severe cases and deaths while developing countries short on shots battle deadly surges.

Indonesia, where Covid-19 cases have reached new highs, has reported about 500 deaths a day in the past week—almost triple the daily levels recorded in early June—data from its health ministry shows. Authorities are racing to add hospital beds as medical workers in parts of the country face shortages of ventilators and isolation rooms. Patients are traveling for hours for proper medical care, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which runs a hospital in West Java province and recently set up emergency tents on-site to accommodate the flow.

“Every day we are seeing this Delta variant driving Indonesia closer to the edge of a Covid-19 catastrophe,” Jan Gelfand, who leads the group’s delegation in the country, said recently. “We need lightning-fast action globally so that countries like Indonesia have access to the vaccines needed to avert tens of thousands of deaths.”

In the U.K., by contrast, the variant is dominant and has pushed reported daily cases up by 67% in the past week compared with the week before, but deaths are down 1.6%, government data shows. Israel, another wealthy nation with high inoculation levels, has reported small new outbreaks but just one fatality in the last two weeks of June, according to data from the World Health Organization. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S., where the variant is highly prevalent, says that vaccines are effective against it. “If you look at the share of the population fully vaccinated in the United States and world-wide, they’re dramatically different, as is the dynamics of infection,” he said.

The divergence is the result of months of inequitable vaccine supply that has left the developing world exposed. The U.S. and U.K. have fully inoculated about half their populations, but across the African continent, just over 1% of people have been fully vaccinated. Mortuaries in Zambia are full and patients are dying in hospital hallways in South Africa waiting for care.

The normally bustling streets of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, have been silenced by a lockdown. WHO data shows deaths in the last week of June, numbering 716, were nearly three times higher than the first week. In India, where the Delta variant was first detected and contributed to a massive surge in April and May, around 4% of people have been fully vaccinated. Indonesia has double-dosed around 5% of its population, according to data from the country’s health ministry.

Like many developing countries, Indonesia has struggled to compete with wealthier nations in securing sufficient shots for its 270 million people, with most of its current supply coming from China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd. It has ordered vaccines produced by Western companies Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE and Novavax Inc. but doesn’t expect to receive them until August and September. Japan recently donated about a million doses of AstraZeneca PLC’s vaccine to Indonesia and the U.S. has pledged four million doses of Moderna Inc. ’s shot—small volumes for the world’s fourth most-populous country.

There are signs of growing demand for shots as cases rise. In Tangerang, a suburb of the capital Jakarta, long lines formed outside a vaccination center in late June and police were dispatched to enforce social distancing. Local authorities later decreed that vaccines would only be available to the area’s residents as they sought to dissuade people from surrounding neighborhoods from crowding the facility.

Indonesia’s government, which had long resisted tighter Covid-19 restrictions, on Thursday announced new curbs for hard-hit areas on the islands of Java and Bali, including limiting export-oriented factories to 50% of staff for 2½ weeks. Schools have moved online and places of worship and malls have closed in these areas, which include major cities such as Jakarta and Bandung.

“In recent days, the Covid-19 pandemic has progressed extremely quickly, because of the new variant,” said President Joko Widodo in a speech. “The situation requires us to take firmer steps.”

Delta is estimated to be at least twice as contagious as the original version of the virus and is now present in 85 countries. Indonesian authorities have detected it on each of the archipelago’s four most-populous islands—Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi and Kalimantan—and the country’s weak healthcare system is straining to cope. Indonesia has half as many doctors per capita as India and Thailand, according to the WHO.

As head of the emergency room at Muhammadiyah Lamongan Hospital in East Java province, Dr. Corona Rintawan said he recently had to decide which of his four patients who were struggling to breathe would get the last-remaining intensive-care bed. He picked a 60-year-old with no major underlying ailments over the three others, one of whom had kidney disease and two were elderly. Two of the three died of respiratory failure at the hospital, he said.

“I chose the one who most likely can be saved,” he said.

A hospital in the province of Banten is fielding calls from families across nearby metropolitan Jakarta who are desperate for beds for their sick relatives, said Dr. Ririek Andri, an emergency-room doctor there. Isolation rooms are full and Covid-19 patients are being crowded into what space can be found on the hospital floor. “What else are we to do?” he said.

Late last month, volunteers from civil-society group LaporCovid-19 called 95 hospitals in the Jakarta area in search of an intensive-care bed for a 59-year-old who needed a ventilator. None of the hospitals were able to help and the patient died shortly thereafter, the group said. The group, which collects district-level data on Covid-19’s spread, said on Thursday it could no longer assist families looking for hospital beds because of widespread shortages.

“It likely hasn’t yet reached its peak,” said co-founder Ahmad Arif. “But the situation is already extremely concerning.”

Vaccines aren’t 100% effective, so some people will be vulnerable to the virus even after receiving two shots

LONDON—As the Delta variant of the coronavirus surges through the U.K., almost half of the country’s recent Covid-19 deaths are of people who have been vaccinated. But doctors and scientists aren’t sounding the alarm about the apparently high proportion of deaths among the vaccinated population.

On the contrary, they say the figures so far offer reassurance that vaccines offer substantial protection against the variant, particularly after two doses. Delta, first identified in India, has since spread to at least 85 countries, including the U.S., where it is now estimated to be the most common variant.

The U.K. is a testing ground for how vaccines are coping. Delta is racing through the country—with 146,000 identified cases in the past week, 72% up on the week before. The country is also a world leader in identifying through testing and genetic sequencing which versions of the virus are prevalent: By mid-June, 97% of cases were Delta infections. And Delta is spreading among a population that is among the most highly vaccinated in the world: 85% of adults have had at least one vaccine shot and 63% have had two.

The spread of Delta has led the U.K. government to postpone by a month the ending of Covid restrictions until July 19. But ministers are increasingly confident that the unlocking will take place as planned because vaccinations have broken the lockstep between new cases, later hospitalizations and deaths.

Data from Public Health England show that there were 117 deaths among 92,000 Delta cases logged through June 21. Fifty of those—46%—had received two shots of vaccine.

But rather than suggest Delta is displaying a worrying ability to evade the vaccine and cause severe illness, scientists say those figures support the shots’ effectiveness. There are three main reasons why.

First, vaccines aren’t 100% effective. Not everyone who is inoculated will respond in the same way. Those who are elderly or whose immune systems are faulty, damaged or stressed by some other illness are less likely to mount a robust response than someone younger and fitter. Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective but some people will still be vulnerable to the virus even after receiving their shots.

Second, the risk of dying from Covid-19 increases steeply with age. If a vaccine reduces an 80-year-old’s risk of death from Covid-19 by 95%, for instance, that 80-year-old’s risk of death might still be greater than the risk faced by an unvaccinated 20-year-old. Some chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension and lung disease are also associated with a higher risk of severe illness and death.

Third, as more of the population gets vaccinated, there are fewer unvaccinated people for the virus to infect. If the pool of vaccinated people is larger than the pool of unvaccinated people, then it is possible and even likely that breakthrough infections resulting in death in the older, vaccinated group would match or exceed deaths in the younger, unvaccinated group. Consider an imaginary country with 100% of people vaccinated, where the virus can still somehow spread. All Covid-19 deaths would be in vaccinated individuals.

Of those 50 deaths in fully vaccinated people in England, all were in people aged 50 years and over, the data show. There have been no deaths recorded in double-vaccinated under 50s.

The data show that, overall, the fatality rate for confirmed cases of Covid-19 has been lower than it was with the Alpha variant, which was first spotted in the U.K. late last year and has since spread around the world. Public Health England pegged the fatality rate for Alpha at 1.9%. It estimates the fatality rate for Delta is closer to 0.3%, which scientists say reflects both mass vaccination and improved treatment for Covid-19. And the vaccine also reduces the chances of catching the virus at all.

Tom Wingfield, a lecturer and infectious-disease physician in Liverpool, England, said these effects are visible in the Covid-19 wards in his district during the current Delta-fueled wave of infection in the U.K.

Those requiring hospital treatment are far fewer in number than in previous waves, he said. So far, the majority have been unvaccinated. Most are from younger age groups who have only recently been made eligible for shots and tend to need less intensive treatment than older patients.

Dr. Wingfield said he has seen Covid-19 patients who have had their shots, but that they have tended to be frail and elderly or suffering from chronic illness. Healthier people who have been double dosed are much less common, he said.

“I think it shows the vaccines are working,” Dr. Wingfield said.

Irene Petersen, professor of epidemiology and health informatics at University College London, said by using a simple, back-of-the-envelope calculation, it is possible to estimate the number of people who might have died in the absence of vaccines in this current phase of the pandemic.

The data show there were 59 over-50s among the 117 deaths who hadn’t received two vaccine doses. Assuming a take-up rate of the vaccine of 95%, in line with the rates seen among the oldest age groups in Britain, that implies some 1,180 people might have died from Covid-19 in the absence of vaccination. Ninety-five percent of that number—1,121—would have occurred in those who are now fully protected. Since only 50 deaths occurred in that group, that implies vaccines reduced the risk of death by 95%.

Public Health England, using a variety of statistical analyses, has estimated that vaccination reduces the risk of hospitalization with the Delta variant in people who have received two doses by between 91% and 98%, with a central estimate of 96%.

Though vaccines offer substantial protection against severe illness and death, there is growing evidence from lab studies and real-world data that Delta does have some ability to bypass vaccines to cause milder infection.

Public Health England says that its analysis of Delta cases in England implies protection against symptomatic Covid-19 caused by Delta of around 79%. That compares with an 89% reduction in the risk of symptomatic Covid-19 with Alpha.

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In Israel, a senior health official said in late June that in a recent outbreak of 200 or so Delta cases, about half were in children 15 years old and younger and the other half were in those aged 16 and above, of whom more than 80% are fully vaccinated.

British data shows Delta is even more adept at evading our immune response after just one dose of vaccine, highlighting the importance, public health officials say, of getting two shots. A single dose reduces the risk of symptomatic Covid-19 with Alpha by 49%, according Public Health England, but only by 35% with Delta.

“What the U.K. is seeing now is increasing coverage of the vaccine does actually suppress the need for hospitalizations, and deaths, from the Delta variant. But there are breakthrough infections,” said Julian Tang, a clinical virologist and professor of respiratory medicine at the University of Leicester.

Law effectively bars Israeli Arabs from extending citizenship to spouses from the occupied Palestinian territories

TEL AVIV—Israel’s parliament is expected to vote Monday on a temporary law that bars citizenship for Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza who are married to Israelis, the latest challenging issue that the new fragile coalition government must overcome.

The law, which was first enacted in 2003 and has since been renewed every year, expires Tuesday at midnight. Coalition parties worked to find a compromise before the vote, which will likely take place late Monday.

Israel’s left-wing and Arab lawmakers, including many in the current government, say the law discriminates against the country’s Arab minority. The right-wing parties, including that of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, say the measure is needed to maintain security and preserve Israel’s Jewish character.

Opposition factions, including former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, are debating whether to back a law that they supported for years on security grounds, or oppose it to frustrate the new government.

Mr. Bennett on Monday accused the opposition of choosing political maneuvering over state security.

“There are things we don’t play with. National security is a red line and the country needs control over who enters it and who becomes a citizen,” he said in a statement.

If the vote fails, it could open the door for tens of thousands of Palestinians who are married to Israelis, mostly Arab citizens, to seek permanent residency and citizenship.

It would also mark the first major setback for the new ruling coalition, which has said it is aiming to avoid trying to solve major pre-existing issues and instead focus on improving the everyday lives of Israeli citizens. It is made up of eight parties considered left- and right-wing and includes the first independent Arab faction in government.

“The opposition will use it to demonstrate that the coalition is a failure,” said Gideon Rahat, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank. “But in essence the government can continue to govern. That’s the bottom line.”

In its first few weeks, the government has faced some difficult obstacles. Last week, it reached a deal to legalize an unauthorized settlement in the occupied West Bank, possibly within months, if the land is found not to belong to Palestinians. That agreement was viewed as a compromise that appeased the coalition’s right-wing parties while forcing an evacuation that placated the left-wing factions.

First introduced as a temporary measure during a Palestinian uprising that saw attacks against Israelis, its proponents say the citizenship bill is essential to protect Israel from militants they fear could seek to infiltrate the country by marrying an Israeli citizen.

Arik Barbing, the former head of the Jerusalem and West Bank divisions at Israel’s internal security service, said that in 2003 there was a real need to prevent Palestinian militant groups from taking advantage of family unification. But today, he said, with fewer Palestinian attacks against Israelis and an improvement in intelligence gathering, the law is no longer required.

“We’re in a different situation in 2021,” he said. “The issue is demography, but no one will say this.”

In recent weeks, the new government nixed planned votes on the law as the Arab faction and the left-wing parties indicated they would vote against it. Right-wing coalition members have met in recent weeks with partners who oppose the bill to find a compromise, but these efforts have so far failed.

A failure to renew the law isn’t expected to change the lives of Palestinians practically in the short term. Israel will still be able to refuse individual citizenship applications from Palestinians at an administrative level, rather than via legislation, analysts said.

The law has affected tens of thousands of families in Israel and the West Bank, preventing Palestinians from legally moving to join their spouses, according to the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, a nongovernmental organization.

For 47-year-old Taiseer Khatib, the failure of the law’s passing could end more than a decade of frustration and uncertainty. The Arab citizen of Israel married his Palestinian wife, Lana, in 2005 and has had to renew a permit annually to ensure she can live in Israel with him and their three children in the northern city of Acre.

“It is a very cruel system of controlling people’s lives,” he said.

Price growth leaves central bank with dilemma over Erdogan’s demand to cut interest rates

Turkish inflation has hit its highest level in more than two years after the easing of pandemic restrictions last month boosted consumer spending, complicating efforts by the central bank to comply with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s demand to cut interest rates.

Consumer prices rose 17.5 per cent in June on an annual basis — the highest rate since May 2019 and well above the 16.8 per cent forecast by analysts polled by Bloomberg. Home furnishings, food and beverages and hospitality all drove the pace of price growth upwards, official statistics showed.

Erdogan, who has called himself the “enemy” of interest rates, has in recent weeks renewed his call for the central bank to cut the cost of finance, saying he expects a reduction in July or August. He sacked the previous central bank governor in March after he increased rates by two percentage points; that unnerved investors and the lira has since fallen more than 15 per cent.

The new governor Sahap Kavcioglu, who shares Erdogan’s unconventional view that high rates drive inflation, has sought to allay investors’ worries that he will ease monetary policy prematurely. He has pledged to keep Turkey’s benchmark rate above inflation, and has held it at 19 per cent in the past three rate-setting meetings. The monetary policy committee is due to meet again next week.

“In an ideal world, with an orthodox central bank that wants to bring down inflation, it would almost certainly be raising interest rates. But this is Turkey’s central bank, which is subject to political influence that has a heavy sway over policymaking,” said Jason Tuvey, an emerging markets economist at Capital Economics.

Erdogan wants lower interest rates to encourage more borrowing in an effort to stimulate the economy, which expanded 7 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021.

However Turkey’s economic recovery from the impact of the pandemic has failed to dent unemployment, which remains high at 14 per cent. Voters’ unhappiness with the economy has triggered a record decline in support for Erdogan’s ruling party.

“Politically he is in quite a lot of trouble, as opinion polls suggest his popularity is waning. He may see the way to boosting that is faster growth and creating more jobs. But Turkey is already experiencing one of the faster recoveries from the [coronavirus] crisis,” said Tuvey.

Turkey’s coronavirus cases have declined to about 4,400 a day and it has lifted a partial lockdown and allowed restaurants and other businesses to reopen after stepping up its vaccine rollout.

Analysts expect that Kavcioglu will struggle to cut interest rates in the coming months as inflation is not expected to cool, in part because the government increased electricity and gas prices this month.

“July [prices] look to be even higher, given energy price hikes announced this past week. All this makes the central bank’s forecast of 12.2 per cent inflation at year-end appear very optimistic,” Timothy Ash, a strategist at BlueBay Asset Management, wrote in a note to clients.

Larger peers pull back, as they pay down debt from previous sprees and resist high premiums

Midsize pharmaceutical companies are the industry’s big deal makers this year, replacing larger brethren as new sources of capital emerge.

Typically the biggest drugmakers do the most deals by value. Yet large-cap pharmaceutical companies have pulled back on acquisitions this year, as they pay down debt from previous sprees and resist high premiums.

Instead, medium-size pharmaceutical companies, which had been targets of their larger peers, have spent the most on acquisitions fueled by the new sources of capital and the need to find growth for the long haul.

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Midcap drug companies have struck nine deals valued at $13.1 billion so far this year, about twice what larger pharmaceutical companies spent on eight acquisitions during the period, according to pharmaceutical data provider Evaluate Group Ltd.

Among the biggest deals across the industry this year was an agreement by midsize Jazz Pharmaceuticals JAZZ 0.18% PLC in May to buy cannabinoid drugmaker GW Pharmaceuticals PLC for $6.7 billion.

Also doing multibillion-dollar deals were midcaps Horizon Therapeutics HZNP -0.75% PLC and MorphoSys AG .

“That’s a sign of their maturity, and the expanded scope of the capital markets for these companies that were previously largely shut out,” said Geoffrey Porges, a SVB Leerink pharmaceuticals analyst.

Licensing and acquisitions can help drugmakers of any size plug holes in their pipelines and portfolios and find new products to increase sales. Wall Street investors often drive up company shares on deal news.

Yet experimental drugs often fail, and a large acquisition can load up a company with debt.

“One transaction can sink a company, particularly if it’s a very large acquisition relative to the size of the company,” said David Steinberg, a Jefferies Financial Group pharmaceuticals analyst.

Jazz, which paid a 50% premium for GW Pharmaceuticals shares, financed its cash-and-stock deal partly with $5.4 billion in debt, including $1.5 billion in senior secured notes and a $3.9 billion term loan. The company said it has plans to rapidly pay down debt.

The deal would help Jazz replace sales lost when its top-selling product, Xyrem, faces generic competition soon, as well as generate future sales growth, Mr. Steinberg said. Xyrem, a narcolepsy drug, accounted for some 70% of Jazz’s $2.4 billion in revenue last year.

GW Pharmaceuticals’s lead product, called Epidiolex, treats a rare form of epilepsy and had $510 million in sales last year.

Large drugmakers have done the majority of the deal making in the last 10 years, as companies from AstraZeneca PLC to AbbVie Inc. and Pfizer Inc. sought to bolster offerings and offset sales losses as patents expired.

From 2016 to 2020, large-cap pharmas struck 178 deals valued at more than $452.3 billion, according to Evaluate. Midsize drugmakers, meanwhile, did 155 deals worth around $55.8 billion.

One factor behind big pharmaceutical companies’ limited deal making this year, analysts said, was a lack of targets the large companies think could meaningfully boost their businesses.

Also contributing, the analysts said, were concerns the government could fight some deals on antitrust grounds and premiums that have exceeded 65% or higher in recent years.

Midsize pharmas, valued between $2.5 billion and $30 billion, have long pursued licensing deals and acquisitions of their own. New ways to fund deals, Mr. Porges said, are helping fuel recent activity.

MorphoSys, despite a $2.9 billion market cap at the time, was able to strike a $1.7 billion deal for cancer drug developer Constellation Pharmaceuticals Inc. by selling the royalty rights for some compounds and drugs from both companies.

For the rights, MorphoSys, of Planegg, Germany, got a $1.4 billion upfront payment from Royalty Pharma PLC, which also agreed to make future milestone payments and is expected to provide $100 million cash for MorphoSys stock.

Constellation brings to MorphoSys two promising but experimental cancer drugs developed using an emerging area of molecular research known as epigenetics.

“There are financial partners to help companies of this size acquire or engineer innovation with M&A,” MorphoSys Chief Executive Jean-Paul Kress said in an interview.

Dublin-based Horizon paid cash for its $2.7 billion acquisition of Viela Bio Inc. earlier this year. It financed the deal partly with $1.6 billion in debt financing. It also used cash on hand, including from a $963.5 million public offering last summer.

Viela brought Horizon a recently approved drug for a rare immune condition and two other immune-disease compounds in development that Horizon said could be big sellers.

Horizon had about $812 million in cash and equivalents left as of the end of March. The company plans to pursue more deals, said Chief Strategy Officer Andy Pasternak.

“We have a better hunting ground in terms of transactions of size that will make a difference,” he said.

Android ad prices have jumped, as iOS users opt out of being tracked, early data show

Advertisers have begun shifting their spending patterns in the months since Apple Inc. began requiring apps to gain iPhone and iPad users’ permission to track them.

After the tracking change took effect in April, many users of Apple’s iOS operating system have received a high volume of prompts from apps asking permission to track them—requests that most have declined. Less than 33% of iOS users opt in to tracking, according to ad-measurement firm Branch Metrics Inc.

As a result, the prices for mobile ads directed at iOS users have fallen, while ad prices have risen for advertisers seeking to target Android users. Those shifts come after many in the digital-ad industry warned that Apple’s changes, which the tech giant framed as part of a broader user-privacy crackdown, would limit advertisers’ access to data about consumers and hurt their business.

Digital advertisers say they have lost much of the granular data that made mobile ads on iOS devices effective and justified their prices. In recent months, ad-buyers have deployed their iOS ad spending in much less targeted ways than were previously possible, marketers and ad-tech companies say. The shortage of user data to fuel Facebook Inc.’s FB 0.09% suite of powerful ad-targeting tools reduces their effectiveness and appeal among some advertisers, ad agencies say.

Apple, for its part, sells ads only in a handful of its own apps and doesn’t take a cut of ad revenue in third-party iOS apps. While advertisers have shifted their spending habits across the ad products of Apple’s large rivals Facebook and Google—which depend much more heavily on ad revenue—it isn’t clear yet how the change has affected overall spending across the digital-ad giants.

The effects of Apple’s change were slow to appear in marketers’ data after the company mandated compliance with its new tracking rules in April. The delay was in part because users wouldn’t see the prompts until they upgraded their devices to a recent version of Apple’s operating system. As of June 22, more than 70% of iOS devices had been upgraded to a version that requires the tracking prompt, according to Branch Metrics, allowing advertisers to begin assessing the impact.

As more of that information has emerged, advertisers have adjusted their buying strategies. Spending on iOS mobile advertising has fallen by about one-third between June 1 and July 1, according to ad-measurement firm Tenjin Inc. Android spending rose 10% over the same period, Tenjin said.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment.

Digital-ad agency Tinuiti Inc. has seen a similar pattern in its clients’ spending, research director Andy Taylor said. When iOS users opted out of tracking, Tinuiti advertisers couldn’t bid on them, he said. That dearth of iOS users drove up demand—and ad prices—for Android users. About 72.8% of smartphones world-wide use the Android operating system, and about 26.4% use iOS, according to Statcounter.

Tinuiti’s Facebook clients went from year-over-year spend growth of 46% for Android users in May to 64% in June. The clients’ iOS spending saw a corresponding slowdown, from 42% growth in May to 25% in June. Android ad prices are now about 30% higher than ad prices for iOS users, Mr. Taylor said. Tinuiti clients’ overall spending on Facebook increased—Android users gained a greater share of it, Mr. Taylor said.

Apple’s hardware, software and services work so harmoniously that it is often called a “walled garden.” The idea is central to recent antitrust scrutiny and the Epic vs. Apple case. WSJ’s Joanna Stern went to a real walled garden to explain it all. Photo illustration: Adele Morgan/The Wall Street Journal

When iOS users opt out of tracking, it restricts the flow of data Facebook gets from apps to build user profiles. Those profiles allow Facebook’s advertisers to target their ads efficiently, both for ads in Facebook’s own apps and in third-party apps.

Tinuiti said it saw an even steeper slide in spending for Facebook’s Audience Network tool, which lets advertisers buy ads in non-Facebook apps using Facebook user data, where Tinuiti clients spend about 1% of their Facebook budgets.

Tinuiti advertisers were allocating about 50% of their Audience Network spending to iOS users at the start of April. By the end of June, they were spending about 20% on iOS users, Mr. Taylor said. Advertisers have typically spent more per iOS user, seeing them as bigger spenders than Android users.

Facebook has been among the most vocal critics of Apple’s new tracker-blocking and warned in August 2020 that the change could lead it to shut down Audience Network. Facebook doesn’t disclose the size of the Audience Network business within its nearly $70 billion digital-ad empire. Ad-tech consulting firm Jounce Media has estimated that Audience Network would bring in $3.4 billion in 2021.

“Third-party data tends to be unreliable and not representative of our business,” a Facebook spokesman said. “While we expect iOS 14.5 to be a headwind for the remainder of the year, the impact on our business will be manageable. What’s most concerning is the impact to the smaller developers and businesses who rely on personalized advertising.”

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in March that “it’s possible that we may even be in a stronger position” after Apple’s change, particularly if it encourages “more businesses to conduct commerce on our platforms, by making it harder for them to basically use their data in order to find the customers that would want to use their products outside of our platforms.”

In many foreign countries, most Facebook users are Android users, according to a person familiar with the matter, so Facebook could benefit from higher Android ad prices.

Many advertisers have also shifted their spending on Facebook’s owned-and-operated apps—Instagram and its namesake social network, which form the core of its business, Mr. Taylor said. Spending to reach iOS users on Instagram and Facebook also slid since Apple’s change, he said, but by less than on third-party apps.

Since the switch, Facebook has significantly altered its Audience Network, which has relied heavily on device identifiers. The company told advertisers in an email last week that it was adding the capability to place contextual ads—which consider factors like time of day and the app’s content—as a way to continue providing relevant ads when certain identifiers aren’t available.

“Showing contextual ads in addition to personalized ads is part of our efforts to help support publishers” amid Apple’s change, the email said.

Shares surge after investors bet on Australia’s emergence from global Covid isolation

Australia’s Sydney Airport has received a $17bn takeover offer from a consortium of investment companies, in a bet on the country’s recovery from international isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

The consortium offered A$8.25 (US$6.20) a share for the operator of Australia’s busiest gateway, Kingsford Smith International Airport, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Monday.

Sydney Airport shares rose as much as 40 per cent to A$8 following the bid. The stock was trading at almost A$9 per share before the coronavirus pandemic shut down Australia’s borders early last year.

Members of the consortium included Australian investment manager IFM Investors, pension fund QSuper and Global Infrastructure Management (Australia), an affiliate of New York-based asset manager Global Infrastructure Partners.

IFM Investors manages more than A$155bn in assets and is owned by pension groups including Australian Super, Cbus, Hesta and Hostplus.

IFM owns 25 per cent of Melbourne Airport, 20 per cent of Brisbane Airport and 13 per cent of Adelaide Airport as well as a stake in Perth Airport, which are all unlisted.

Sydney Airport said it would consider “whether the proposal is reflective of the underlying value of the airport given its long-term remaining concession and the expected short-term impact of the pandemic”.

The proposal “has been made during a global pandemic which has deeply affected the aviation industry and the Sydney Airport security price”, the company said.

The airport operator noted that the “indicative price is below where Sydney Airport’s security price traded before the pandemic”. The proposal represents a price 42 per cent above the company’s share price at the close of trading on Friday.

The bid is dependent on UniSuper, which holds about 15 per cent of Sydney Airport, agreeing to reinvest its equity interest for an equivalent equity interest in the consortium’s holding vehicle, rather than cash.

Australia’s strategy of trying to eliminate Covid-19 by closing its borders has devastated the tourism and leisure industries, especially aviation.

In May, Sydney Airport’s international traffic was down more than 93 per cent compared with the same month of 2019. Domestic traffic, which has resumed with interruptions from persistent local lockdowns, fell 39 per cent in 2019

Sydney Airport holds a monopoly on traffic to and from Australia’s most populous city, but that is due to end in 2026 with the opening of Western Sydney Airport. The company is Australia’s only listed airport operator.

Sydney Airport named Barrenjoey Capital Partners and UBS Group as its advisers on the offer.

South Korea’s leading ecommerce platform under scrutiny as it plans aggressive expansion

South Korea’s Coupang is being investigated over allegations it manipulated search algorithms to prioritise its own products over those of suppliers, according to industry figures with knowledge of the probe.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission conducted an on-the-spot inspection at the ecommerce group’s headquarters in Seoul last month, following accusations it had abused its market dominance by giving greater exposure to its private label products on its platform than those of third parties.

The probe marked the latest setback for the SoftBank-backed company, which has faced public scrutiny even as founder Bom Kim has accelerated Coupang’s expansion plans following a $3.5bn initial public offering in New York in March.

It also came as the company faced criticism over its labour practices and workplace safety after a series of workers’ deaths at its warehouses, and consumer boycotts over its handling of a recent fire that killed one person and destroyed its biggest logistics centre.

Coupang has previously denied responsibility for the deaths and has stood by its fire safety procedures.

“The KFTC is looking into allegations of unfair business practices using its algorithms,” said an industry official close to the situation.

Last year, the KFTC imposed a Won26.7bn ($23.6m) fine on Naver, the country’s dominant internet portal, for tampering with search algorithms on its video and shopping platforms to place its own service above others.

Coupang has also been accused by civic groups of bullying vendors to offer products on its platform at the cheapest prices while disadvantaging those that do not accept its demands.

To protect small merchants, South Korean regulators have stepped up scrutiny of leading online groups for unfair business practices or abuse of market dominance.

The KFTC is expected to soon announce the results of an investigation into a 2019 complaint by LG Household & Health Care, one of Coupang’s suppliers, that the ecommerce group violated the fair trade act.

Analysts said allegations of tampering with algorithms were common in South Korea’s ecommerce sector.

Coupang’s own private label products accounted for less than 10 per cent of its overall sales but the proportion was expected to grow as the company sought to improve margins, analysts said.

“[The allegations] will definitely worsen Coupang’s image,” said an analyst at a local brokerage. “It is a consumer-facing business. The company needs to take them seriously and do something to regain consumer trust.”

Coupang declined to comment on the KFTC probe and allegations raised by civic groups.

Coupang’s US listing pushed Japanese technology group SoftBank to record profits last year.

But Coupang, whose valuation touched $118.3bn immediately following its IPO, has come under pressure from investors after disappointing first-quarter results that showed widening losses despite a sharp increase in revenues.

Truckmakers aim to invest €500m to build 1,700 charging sites across continent

Volvo Group, Daimler Trucks and Traton, Europe’s three largest truckmakers, plan to roll out a dedicated superfast charging network for haulage vehicles and coaches to help accelerate their shift to the electric era.

The groups on Monday announced a joint venture that will invest €500m in 1,700 chargers and aim to attract public funding for the project. The haulage industry estimates it needs 50,000 chargers across Europe by 2030.

“We only have 10 charging stations in the whole of Europe right now, so there’s a hell of a lot to do,” Traton chief executive Matthias Gründler told the Financial Times on Monday.

Martin Lundstedt, Volvo Group chief executive, added: “In order to get this transition to happen, we need to have not only vehicles but a reliable public network.”

Europe’s largest six truckmakers last year pledged to eliminate polluting diesel models from their line-up by 2040, but the challenges of decarbonising the heaviest vehicles on the roads are significant.

The weight of the vehicles and the distances travelled mean they have to carry huge numbers of batteries, or recharge more often. That poses problems for a logistics and haulage industry that relies on minimising downtime and running cost.

Some parts of the industry are banking on hydrogen technology, which offers greater distances between refuelling than battery electric power. But large parts of the sector are also expecting to embrace battery technology.

The charging points backed by Daimler Trucks, Volvo Group and Traton — the VW-backed owner of Scania and Man — will be close to highways and destination hubs. The companies aim to have the sites ready by 2027.

The charging speeds will range from 50 kilowatts for overnight stops up to 750kW, which is fast enough to recharge a truck battery during a 45-minute mandated driver rest period. The three companies are still waiting on regulatory approval for the use of 750kW chargers, the three chief executives told the FT.

They will also require upgrades to the local power grids to accommodate such charging speeds, they added.

The arrangement echoes a deal that saw several carmakers including VW, BMW, Daimler and Ford team up to invest in superfast charging stations for cars across Europe, called Ionity.

The truckmakers on Monday said there was an “urgent need for a high-performance charging network to support truck operators”.

ACEA, the industry’s European lobby group, estimates that 50,000 high-performance chargers are needed just for heavy goods vehicles by the end of the decade.

“It is the joint aim of Europe’s truck manufacturers to achieve climate neutrality by 2050,” said Daimler Truck chief executive Martin Daum. “However, it is vital that building up the right infrastructure goes hand in hand with putting CO2-neutral trucks on the road.

“The second step should be a strong engagement of the EU for the full scale-up of a charging network across Europe,” he added.

Last week, Daimler, the world’s largest truckmaker by volume, unveiled its first Mercedes long-haul electric truck, the eActros.

But the German group warned that demand for the vehicle would be modest in the short term, while the total cost of ownership lags behind current models in some markets.

The truck, to go on sale in 12 European countries in October, will cost “roughly three times a conventional [combustion engine] or diesel truck”, said Andreas von Wallfeld, head of global sales at Mercedes’ trucks division.