■TELECOMS
3G subscriptions on the rise
The number of 3G mobile phone subscriptions in Taiwan has continued to increase rapidly, with subscriptions rising to 7.96 million to account for 32.5 percent of the total mobile phone subscriptions in the first quarter of this year, a report released this week by the Institute for Information Industry said. The number marks 15.2 percent growth from the previous quarter, when 3G subscriptions totaled 6.91 million, or 28.5 percent of the total mobile phone subscriptions, said the report authored by the institute’s Foreseeing Innovative New Digiservices division. In the first quarter of this year, mobile phone subscriptions jumped 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter to hit 24.47 million, with the mobile phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants standing at 106.5, the report says. Compared with the significant growth in 3G network subscriptions, 2G network subscriptions declined 5.5 percent quarter-on-quarter to 15.03 million, the report said.
■AUTOMOBILES
Nissan to expand in China
Japan’s Nissan Motor Co and its Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor Corp (東風汽車) plan to build a new engine factory in central China, a newspaper reported yesterday. The two firms will jointly invest more than ¥24 billion (US$224 million) in construction of the new plant, which will begin operation in March next year, the Nikkei business daily reported. The factory will be located near Zhengzhou Nissan Automobile Co, an assembly joint venture between the two automakers in Henan Province, the newspaper said. Nissan and Dongfeng are to set up a new joint venture in October to control the plant with an initial capital of ¥11 billion, the daily said. Dongfeng will control 51 percent of the venture and the 50-50 Dongfeng-Nissan venture taking the remaining 49 percent.
■ECONOMY
ASEAN to face ‘headwinds’
The major ASEAN economies are likely to deliver higher-than-expected growth this year, but the outlook for next year looks challenging, economists said in a report published in Singapore yesterday. Morgan Stanley raised its growth forecast for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia for this year to 5.6 percent from an earlier estimate of 5.5 percent. The investment bank kept intact its recently upgraded GDP growth projections for Malaysia at 5.7 percent and Thailand at 5.6 percent. It jacked up the forecast for Indonesia by half a point to 6 percent and cut Singapore’s from 5.1 percent to 4.3 percent, the breakdown in the Business Times said. ASEAN economies will “face headwinds” next year as higher inflation cuts into purchasing power and capital investment decisions, and export markets soften, the investment bank’s outlook said. It cut its GDP growth forecast for next year for the region to 5.1 percent, nearly 1 point.
■COMPUTERS
Ex-IBM worker admits theft
An executive who worked at IBM Corp for nearly a decade pleaded guilty on Friday to stealing trade secrets about the company’s pricing and trying to pass them off to his superiors at rival Hewlett-Packard Co when he took a job there. Atul Malhotra, 42, faces up to 10 years in prison and a US$250,000 fine on the single count of theft of trade secrets, prosecutors said on Friday. Malhotra entered his plea to the charge in US District Court in San Jose, California, where sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 29. Malhotra worked from 1997 to 2006 as a director of sales and business development in the Armonk, New York-based IBM’s global services division.
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