Sun, Oct 05, 2008 page11

• Business Quick Take

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH AGENCIES
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  ■ MOTORCYCLES

  Yamaha overtakes KYMCO

  Yamaha Motor Taiwan Co (台灣山葉機車) was the top seller of new motorcycles in Taiwan last month, surpassing Kwang Yang Motor Co (光陽機車), which stopped offering price promotions and discounts last month amid stiff price competition. Yamaha sold 30,821 new motorcycles last month, up 18.8 percent from a year earlier, helped by strong sales of its 100cc scooters, statistics compiled by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and Kwang Yang showed. Kwang Yang, better known as KYMCO, slid to the No. 3 spot last month with 28,325 new motorcycles sold, down 3.5 percent from a year earlier. The company was the only one among the nation’s three major motorcycle manufacturers that saw its sales decline last month. Sanyang Industry Co (三陽工業), which sells motorcycles under the SYM brand, ranked third last month by selling 26,916 new motorcycles, up 6.3 percent from a year earlier.

  ■ SMARTPHONES

  AT&T testing new BlackBerry

  A delayed top-of-the-line BlackBerry phone from Research in Motion Ltd (RIM) is still undergoing testing by AT&T Inc, and RIM’s co-CEO implied that the carrier wanted to avoid the chorus of complaints about performance that greeted the new iPhone this summer. RIM said in May that the BlackBerry Bold 9000 would go on sale this summer. It has gone on sale in some foreign markets, but is still not available in the US, and no date has been announced. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said on Thursday the phone was still undergoing the certification process in which AT&T tests all new handsets to make sure they work well on its wireless network.

  ■ BEVERAGES

  Coke bottler seeks support

  Venezuela’s Coca-Cola bottler is seeking government support to end a conflict with former workers that it says has cost some US$5 million in lost sales. Coca-Cola FEMSA de Venezuela SA legal director Rodrigo Anzola says he has met with the president of Venezuela’s national assembly to solicit her help in resolving the conflict. More than 11,000 former employees began blocking plants and distribution centers belonging to the Mexican-owned bottler on Wednesday. They say the company owes them US$520 million in social security payments.

  ■ PETROLEUM

  Myanmar oil, gas deal inked

  A Vietnamese company has signed a deal to explore for offshore oil and gas in Myanmar, a state news report in Yangon said yesterday. The Petrovietnam Exploration Production Corp Ltd, Joint Venture Vietsovpetro and a private Burmese company, Eden Group Company Ltd, signed a contract on Friday for exploration, drilling and production of oil and gas in the Gulf of Martaban, the Myanma Ahlin daily reported.

  ■ AVIATION

  AirAsia exploring options

  AirAsia, the region’s largest low-cost carrier, said yesterday it is exploring “various options,” following a newspaper report that it may soon be privatized. “We have continuously been exploring various options at both shareholders and company level,” group deputy chief executive officer Kamarudin Meranum told reporters. “There is nothing to confirm at the moment,” he said in response to the report in business newspaper the Edge. “[AirAsia] has generated a lot of interest but there has always been skepticism about its business model from investors looking at short term returns,” the weekly cited an unnamed source as saying.
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