■ TRADE
Germany tops China
Germany defended its rank as top global exporter last year, beating China for possibly the last time as it posted a sharp increase in its trade surplus yesterday. Exports by the biggest European economy came to 969 billion euros (US$1.4 billion) last year, an increase of 8.5 percent from 2006, official figures showed. China sold US$1.22 billion worth of goods abroad, data on the Chinese trade ministry's Internet site shows. The WTO said last year that China would surpass Germany next year. Germany posted a trade surplus for last year of 199 billion euros, up 40 billion euros, the figures showed.
■ INTERNET
Softbank,Yahoo in talks
The president of a Japanese mobile carrier that owns a stake in Yahoo said he is in talks with Yahoo chief Jerry Yang (楊致遠) about how to respond to Microsoft's takeover bid. "The talks have just started," said Masayoshi Son, president of Softbank Corp, at a news conference about earnings on Thursday. Last week, Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo Inc for about US$44.6 billion. Softbank owns a 3.9 percent stake in Yahoo of the US and about 40 percent of Yahoo Japan. Yahoo Inc in turn owns about a third of Yahoo Japan.
■ INTERNET
Facebook says `hola'
Facebook Inc has unveiled a Spanish-language version of its popular online social network, hoping to expand its audience and catch up to MySpace.com. It marks the first time Facebook has been available in a language other than English since founder Mark Zuckerberg started the site at Harvard University four years ago. The Spanish version was unveiled on Thursday. Facebook plans to add French and German versions before April, said Matt Cohler, vice president of strategy and operations. News Corp's MySpace is already available in 13 languages.
■ ENTERTAINMENT
Soros invests in Bollywood
Billionaire George Soros has bought a US$100 million stake in films-to-mobile Indian media company Reliance Entertainment owned by tycoon Anil Ambani, an official said yesterday. "A fund owned by George Soros has picked up a 3 percent stake in Reliance Entertainment for US$100," a Reliance spokesman said. He said the sale valued unlisted Reliance Entertainment at 120 billion rupees (US$3 billion). It will use the money to boost its presence in the media sector and to produce movies with top Bollywood directors, the Economic Times said. Mumbai-based Bollywood, the world's largest movie-making industry, turned out more than 250 films last year.
■ TELECOMS
"Google platform to debut
British chip designer ARM will demonstrate a prototype of Google Inc's Android mobile phone platform in action next week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a source close to the company said. Google and ARM declined to comment on the report. Google established an alliance of more than 30 carriers, handset makers, software firms and chipmakers last November to develop Android, which is based on open-source software and designed to make the Internet work better on mobile phones. Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and High Tech Computer Corp (宏達電) of Taiwan have said that they plan to offer phones based on the Android platform this year.
■ EUROPEAN UNION
ECB hits of more rate cuts
European Central Bank (ECB) president Jean-Claude Trichet stressed "unusually high" uncertainty about eurozone growth prospects as the bank opened the door to a possible rate cut in the months to come if necessary. "Uncertainty about the prospects for economic growth is unusually high" and risks to future momentum had increased the chances of a slowdown, Trichet said at a press conference in Frankfurt on Thursday after the bank left its main rate at 4 percent. Trichet said information available to the bank suggested growth in the 15-nation eurozone was "close to potential but perhaps on the lower side of growth potential," which has been identified as 2 percent. "I see a number of forecasts around 1.8 percent for the present year," he said.
■ BANKING
Broker quizzed over Kerviel
French police questioned a share broker yesterday over links to rogue trader Jerome Kerviel, whose 4.8 billion euro (US$7.1 billion) losses nearly brought Societe Generale (SocGen) bank to its knees, justice officials said. The broker was detained on Thursday when police also raided a trading firm linked to SocGen, the sources said. The man, who has not been named but works at the Fimat brokerage, is suspected of being aware of Kerviel's unauthorized trading, Le Monde reported. Many of Kerviel's transactions on the European stock market are believed to have passed via Fimat, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SocGen that specializes in the derivatives which Kerviel traded in. Two days before SocGen's losses were revealed on Jan. 24, Fimat was merged with another broker subsidiary, Calyon. The new firm is called Newedge.
■ GEMS
De Beers sales drop 3.7%
De Beers has posted a 3.7 percent fall in natural rough diamond sales for last year to US$5.92 billion due to tighter supplies. Jewelry demand last year was healthy, but the outlook for this year was uncertain, it said yesterday. "The economic conditions in the US could continue to impact consumer diamond jewelry sales through the first half particularly at the lower end," De Beers said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by