■ Visa-card holders spend a lot
The nation's Visa credit-card holders' strong purchasing power made Taiwan rank among the top five spending countries in China, Hong Kong and Japan last year, Visa International reported yesterday. Entitled "Recent Trends in Spending by Visitors to Asia Pacific," the report showed that the two largest spending countries in the region last year were the US (US$3.26 billion) and the UK (US$2.62 billion), followed by Japan, Hong Kong and Australia. In total, Visa-card holders purchased goods and services worth US$17.3 billion last year, up from US$16 billion in 2002 and US$14 billion in 2001, the report said. The growing importance of intra-regional tourism to Asia-Pacific countries was also highlighted, with Asia-Pacific-based cardholders making up 45 percent of total Visa spending last year, up from 39 percent in 1999. In the same period, the proportion of Visa-card spending in the region by cardholders from North America and Europe declined from 58 percent to 53 percent. "Intra-Asia travel is a good barometer for the health of the global travel industry ... What this report shows is a healthy Asian tourism industry," said Visa Asia Pacific Executive Vice-President James Murray.
■ Digital gap to be narrowed
The government has set the narrowing of the digital gap as a major policy and will invest NT$6.8 billion (US$206.68 million) over the next four years to achieve this goal, the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission (RDEC) said yesterday. RDEC Chairman Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) made the remarks as the commission held a seminar on the promotion of information services in remote areas in Yunlin County, southern Taiwan. On the same occasion, the commission also donated computers that have been phased out by government agencies to poor students in Yunlin and Nantou to take care of minority groups in remote areas. The commission has from last year helped local governments establish footholds for residents in remote areas to use the Internet. This year, it has worked with local governments and civic groups to establish information service Web sites and promote information education to create a more convenient information service environment for residents in remote areas.
■ Acer reports rising sales
Acer Inc, Taiwan's third-largest computer company by market value, said sales last month rose 49 percent from a year ago. The company also announced it sold 125 million shares in BenQ Corp (明基電通). Sales last month rose to NT$16.2 billion (US$492 million) from NT$10.9 billion, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Sales rose from NT$12.3 billion in September. Acer sold the BenQ shares at NT$32.40 a share and expects to record a capital gain of NT$1.7 billion, the company said in a separate statement to the exchange. BenQ is Taiwan's largest mobile-phone handset maker.
■ AU Optronics' sales rise 23%
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world's third-largest maker of flat-panel displays used in computers and televisions, said sales last month rose 23 percent from a year ago. Sales climbed to NT$12.8 billion (US$389 million) from NT$10.4 billion, according to a Taiwan Stock Exchange statement. They fell from NT$12.9 billion the previous month. Rival Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) also reported sales rose 23 percent from a year earlier to NT$8.5 billion ($259 million) last month. Sales rose from NT$8 billion in September, according to filings to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained