Shares of Sony Corp rose to the highest level in about two weeks in Tokyo trading on expectations of speedier reorganization after CEO Howard Stringer took control of the company’s main electronics business.
Sony, the world’s No. 2 consumer electronics maker, gained 1.4 percent to ¥1,691 (US$17.4) as of the 11am break on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, while the Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 3.2 percent. It was the stock’s highest level since Feb. 16.
Stringer will take over as president from Ryoji Chubachi April 1, while keeping his current roles, Tokyo-based Sony said on Friday after Japanese share markets closed.
The reassignment of Chubachi, who also headed the electronics division, will allow quicker decision-making at the producer of Bravia TV sets to help turn the TV business profitable, analysts said.
“The management change gives the impression that the company now places higher priority on faster decision making,” Kota Ezawa, an analyst with Nikko Citi Holdings Inc in Tokyo, wrote in a report yesterday.
Ezawa raised his investment rating on Sony to “buy” from “hold” and increased the share-price estimate to ¥2,100.
“Sony had a problem with its speed of making decisions, as represented by the long-standing losses at its TV business,” Nobuo Kurahashi, an analyst at Mizuho Investors Securities Co in Tokyo who rates the company “neutral,” said by telephone.
The management change “will allow the company to make faster decisions at a time of unprecedented economic crisis,” Kurahashi said.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy