Applications for license plates for locally made vehicles, an indication of new car sales, fell 24.1 percent to 15,714 for the first 20 days of this month compared to figures from a year earlier, according to statistics from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
Sales figures for the corresponding period this year were 3.4 percent lower than in the same period last month, government data showed.
From Jan.1 to June 20, new car registrations declined by 24.4 percent to 189,977 vehicles from a year earlier, suggesting weak consumer spending due to recent unexpected tightness in the personal credit market affecting new car sales.
For the first 20 days of this month, Hotai Motor Ltd (
Following Hotai, China Motor Corp (中華汽車) which assembles and distributes Mitsubishi Motor Corp vehicles in Taiwan, had sold 31,973 units as of June 20, down 26.2 percent from a year earlier, with 16.8 percent market share.
Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) was in third place having marketed 21,139 new vehicles this year, down 37.5 percent from the same period last year, with 11.1 percent market share.
Yulon manufactures cars for Japan's Nissan Motor Co.
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