Daimler enters joint venture
German luxury auto group Daimler AG said yesterday it started a US$300 million joint venture to make multi-purpose vehicles in China.
Daimler, Taiwan-based China Motors (中華汽車) and China's Fujian Motors (福建汽車) have put US$296 million into the venture, Daimler spokeswoman Zhou Bing-yi said in Beijing.
The plant in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, will make Mercedes Viano and Vito multi-purpose vehicles and the Sprinter van, with the first model set to roll off the production line in mid 2009, the company said in a statement.
With annual capacity of 40,000 units, the venture will be "Daimler's south China pillar," said Ulrich Walker, chairman and chief executive of Daimler's Northeast Asia operations.
Daimler said it expected the premium multi-purpose vehicle in China to more than double to about 500,000 units annually, compared with 200,000 now.
Laptop sales grow 24 percent
Sales of PCs or notebook computers in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan reached 16.1 million in the third quarter, representing 13 percent growth over the last quarter and 24 percent growth over the same period last year, according to a report released yesterday by market research group International Data Corp (IDC). Portable PCs are selling fast in retail channels, said Bryan Ma, IDC director of Asia Pacific Personal Systems research.
"Even emerging markets that intuitively would gravitate toward lower-priced desktop PCs have shown increased interest in notebook computers. If things keep going at this pace, the region's portable PC shipments will likely reach the 20-million-unit milestone for the year," he said.
As of the end of September, the top five PC vendors in terms of market share are Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) with 20.5 percent, which continued to maintain its lead in the Asia-Pacific PC market, followed by Hewlett-Packard Co with 12.5 percent, Dell Inc with 8.8 percent, Acer Inc with 5.8 percent and Founder Group (方正集團) with 6.2 percent, IDC said.
Jobless rate increases
The unemployment rate last month among people with at least a bachelor's degree hit 4.97 percent, marking the highest level within the last year, according to statistics released by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) on Monday.
A DGBAS official attributed the increase over the past year to the fact that young people frequently change jobs, saying that 83 percent of unemployed university degree holders are "voluntarily" unemployed, having left their positions because of dissatisfaction with their jobs.
Despite an increase in the unemployment rate, the official said that it was not a structural unemployment problem and that the reason behind the increase was relatively simple.
The statistics also show that the unemployment rate among people with a high school degree was 4.49 percent last month, while that of people with a junior high school degree or below was 2.91 percent.
IBM, MediaTek team up
IBM Corp will work with MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) to build chips that wirelessly transmit movies.
The chips rely on a technology called millimeter waves, which use the highest frequency part of the radio spectrum -- at least 100 times faster than today's standards, the companies said in a statement.
Televisions, personal computers and hand-held devices using the chips will be able to transfer high-definition movies almost instantaneously without the need for wiring, IBM said.
After several years flying high as Asia’s best Nvidia Corp proxy, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is increasingly vying with other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks for investor attention. Stock traders are chasing a wider array of beneficiaries as mainstream usage of AI creates demand for hardware beyond the most-advanced chips TSMC makes for Nvidia. Subthemes from the deepening memory crunch to advances in robotics are also luring bids. At the same time, investment caps on single stocks are pushing funds to diversify, while retail investors long familiar with TSMC through its US depositary receipts are being offered a broader set of
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
TECH RELIANCE: Growth is increasingly reflecting an unequal K-shaped distribution, where technology sectors outperform and other industries struggle, an expert said Standard Chartered Bank has significantly raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth to 9.5 percent this year, up from 7.6 percent previously, citing surging artificial intelligence (AI) demand driving exports, semiconductor production and investment. The upgrade reflects a sustained AI supercycle that continues to fuel demand for advanced chips and technology infrastructure, which form the backbone of Taiwan’s exports, the bank said in a report this week. “We raise our 2026 growth forecast to reflect a much stronger-than-expected first-quarter GDP figure,” Standard Chartered senior economist for greater China and Asia Tommy Wu (胡東安) said in the report. Driven largely by a 35.3 percent
Two of Taiwan’s international carriers, Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), have retained the five-star airline rating awarded by international airline review organization Skytrax. Starlux was awarded the distinction for a second consecutive year, while EVA Air received it for the 11th straight year, Skytrax said in statements released yesterday and on Thursday last week, respectively. The five-star rating is considered one of the airline industry's highest honors and is awarded following professional audits of airline product and frontline service standards, Skytrax said. The ratings are based on in-depth assessments using unified global quality standards rather than customer review scores
RSS