■ Computers
Chinese PC sales up 10%
Sales of computers in China reached 17 million in the first nine months of the year on the back of government policies to promote high technology, state media reported yesterday. For the full year this year, computer sales are expected to at least double compared with last year, when sales were 9.2 million, Xinhua news agency reported. As a result, urban Chinese will soon have more computers than TV sets, the agency said, quoting Wang Dianfu, deputy director of the China Council of Electronics Business. Wang credited the government with the growth, citing a nine-year-old policy to establish an "information expressway" in China. The agency said that in the first six months of the year, 5.1 million personal computers were sold, an increase of 10 percent from the same period in last year.
■ Electronics
Firms to stop making CRTs
Japan's Matsushita and Toshiba will stop making picture tubes for televisions domestically next year, ending the half-a-century history of cathode-ray tube production here, a report said yesterday. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd and Toshiba Corp will terminate their cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) production at Japanese factories by the end of next September, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. As Sony Corp has already decided to withdraw from domestic picture tube production next year, the Matsushita and Toshiba move signals the end of the mass production of CRTs in Japan, the economic daily said. Shifting its CRT production to overseas bases, Matsushita Electric, better known for its National and Panasonic brands, will instead focus its domestic output on high-definition plasma panels, it said.
■ Restaurants
`McJob' angers McDonald's
McDonald's says it deserves a break from the unflattering way the latest Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary depicts its job opportunities. Among some 10,000 new additions to an updated version released in June was the term "McJob," defined as "low paying and dead-end work." In an open letter to Merriam-Webster, McDonald's CEO Jim Cantalupo said the term is "an inaccurate description of restaurant employment" and "a slap in the face to the 12 million men and women" who work in the restaurant industry. McDonald's, the world's largest restaurant chain, has more than 30,000 restaurants and more than 400,000 employees. Walt Riker, a spokesman for McDonald's, said the Oak Brook, Illinois-based fast-food giant also is concerned that "McJob" closely resembles McJOBS, the company's training program for mentally and physically challenged people.
■ Spending
Japanese firms' profits up
Combined recurring profits at listed Japanese companies grew 25 percent in the first half to September, fueled more by rising demand than by cost savings from restructuring, a report said yesterday. As of Friday, 290 listed firms had reported consolidated recurring profit of ¥4.56 trillion (US$41.8 billion) in the first half, up 25.1 percent from a year earlier, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily said in a survey. The driving forces for the growth are booming markets of digital gear such as liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions and digital cameras as well as strong sales of cars in North America and steel products in Asia, it said. The companies' net profit rose 27.8 percent in the six months on 1.3 percent sales growth, it said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day