News round up: Thomas Cook Group plc, Apple Inc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc, Austerity programme, Virgin trains, Sharp.

Struggling holiday operator Thomas Cook Group plc (LON:TCG) has managed to sell almost all of its Olympics packages comprising tickets and a hotel stay, but acknowledged that selling the deals to corporate customers had been "challenging".

Thomas Cook has sold 95pc of its 300,000 Olympic tickets, but the bulk have been sold to the general public after the operator struggled to sell them to business customers. Around 10pc of the deals have been sold to corporate customers after the economic downturn dented demand, as did concerns about the implementation of the Bribery Act, which made companies nervous about offering or accepting corporate hospitality.

The deals were priced between £599 and £6,499 and included five-star restaurant meals and a stay in the Waldorf Hilton hotel in central London. But the lacklustre response from companies compelled Thomas Cook to repackage unsold tickets with cheaper hotels to attract the general public with lower prices, writes the Telegraph.

Apple Inc

Apple’s iPad has claimed more than two thirds of the global tablet computer market, according to new industry figures. A report by IDC found that 25m tablets were sold worldwide in the three months to June 30, up 33.6% from the first quarter and 66.1% year-on-year. Apple got a boost from the March of its newest version of the iPad, and sold 17m tablets in the second quarter, giving it a 68% market share.

Samsung jumped into second place with sales of nearly 2.4m, up 117% from a year earlier. Tom Mainelli, an IDC analyst, said: “Apple built upon its strong March iPad launch and ended the quarter with its best-ever shipment total for the iPad, outrunning even the impressive shipment record it set in the fourth quarter of last year. The vast majority of consumers continue to favor the iPad over competitors,” writes The Times.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc

Top shareholders in RBS have complained to the Treasury over "dangerous" and "damaging" suggestions that the taxpayer-backer lender could be fully nationalised. Leading shareholders in Royal Bank of Scotland have complained to the Treasury over what they say are the “dangerous” and “damaging” suggestions that government ministers are looking at fully nationalising the lender.

Business Secretary Vince Cable is understood to have pushed proposals for the state to consider buying out minority shareholders in RBS, a position that flies in the face of promises made by the Government to sell down the 82% taxpayer holding in the bank over the next two to five years, The Telegraph explains.

Austerity programme

Delaying the austerity programme by three years would put 200,000 people back into work and raise economic growth by 239bn pounds over a decade, according to one of the UK’s leading think tanks. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) published the analysis as it slashed its growth forecast for this year from 0 per cent to a contraction of 0.5 per cent and warned that the recovery would not begin in earnest until 2014.

Had the Government delayed austerity this year, the economy would have grown 1.2 per cent, NIESR estimated. The research will pile more pressure on the Government to respond to the double-dip recession with a new growth strategy. Last month, the International Monetary Fund said the Chancellor would have to react in next March’s Budget if the economy has failed to bounce back by then, according to The Telegraph.

Virgin trains

An increasingly bitter competition for control of the West Coast Main Line was branded a “shambles” yesterday as anticipation mounted that Virgin Trains could be shunted off Britain’s railways. Louise Ellman, chairman of the Commons Transport Select Committee, has joined unions and industry experts in urging the Government to think carefully before handing a franchise to operate London-to-Glasgow trains to FirstGroup, a rival to Virgin.

FirstGroup has offered to pay nearly £7bn in profits to the Government if it wins a 14-year contract to operate the line from December, when the existing franchise expires. Its bid is about £1bn higher than Virgin’s offer but will involve deep cost-cutting, The Times says.

Sharp

Jobs at the UK arm of Sharp are under threat as the Japanese electronics maker plans to cut 5,000 roles globally following a 94.1bn yen loss. Sharp will slash thousands of jobs by March in its first cuts since 1950 as it is hit by a prolonged slump in its key television and liquid crystal display sectors.

The company, which employs 57,000 people globally, and more than 1,000 in the UK, has seen operations suffer amid worries over high energy prices, a high yen, slow domestic demand and global economic uncertainty. It had originally considered cutting about 3,000 domestic jobs, but decided to expand the scope to include worldwide operations to accelerate a management restructuring, Kyodo News said. Meanwhile, Sharp executives will take pay cuts of 20% to 50%, compared with an originally planned 10% to 30%, Kyodo and broadcaster NHK said, The Telegraph reports.