The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) yesterday approved the takeover of Yum Restaurants (Taiwan) Co (台灣百勝肯德基) by Jardine Matheson Holdings Ltd, saying the deal did not create a monopoly.
Hong Kong-based Jardine, which owns Pizza Hut operator Jardine Food Services (Taiwan) Co (富利食品), received permission to acquire 100 percent of Yum Restaurants, which runs Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) in Taiwan, through its subsidiary, Jardine Matheson Europe BV.
The Cabinet-level commission said the ownership of both chains would not change the way Pizza Hut and KFC run their businesses, as they have different product appeal.
The threshold for operating Western fast food businesses in Taiwan is low, with diversified product offerings on the market, the commission said. As such, the deal with Jardine will not change the market structure, it said.
Yum Restaurants could see its competitiveness enhanced after the takeover brings in new capital, it said.
Yum Restaurants was originally owned by KFC’s US headquarters but its performance was lackluster.
In December, the head office decided to let Jardine take over operations of its KFC restaurants in Taiwan.
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
At a massive shipyard in North Vancouver, Canadian workers grind metal beams for a powerful new icebreaker crucial to cementing the country’s presence in the increasingly contested arctic. Icebreakers are specialized, expensive vessels able to navigate in the frozen far north. And “this is the crown jewel,” said Eddie Schehr, vice president of production at the Seaspan shipyard. For Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who heads to Norway next Friday to observe arctic defense drills involving troops from 14 NATO states, Canada’s extreme north has emerged as a strategic priority. “Canada is and forever will be an Arctic nation,” he said ahead of
RSS