■TELECOMS
Alcatel avoids prosecution
Alcatel-Lucent SA agreed to pay US$137.4 million and make internal reforms to avoid US prosecution for alleged bribes paid in Taiwan, Costa Rica and Kenya, a company regulatory filing said. Under an agreement in principle, the US Justice Department would defer prosecution of Alcatel on charges that it violated the internal controls and books and records provision of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the Feb. 11 filing said. Alcatel said it would enter into a three-year probationary period and agree to a French anti-corruption monitor. Alcatel-Lucent France, Alcatel-Lucent Trade and Alcatel Centroamerica will plead guilty to violating the FCPA’s anti-bribery provisions, the filing said. Paris-based Alcatel, the world’s biggest supplier of fixed-line phone networks, also agreed in principle on a civil accord with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
■EUROPE
Exports boost services
Europe’s service and manufacturing industries expanded for a seventh month this month, as rising export orders helped to counter sluggish domestic demand. A composite index based on a survey of euro-area purchasing managers in both industries remained at 53.7 this month, London-based Markit Economics said yesterday. Economists forecast a drop to 53.5, the median of 16 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. European companies may keep spending and hiring plans on hold as government stimulus measures expire and surging oil prices push up costs. The euro region economy expanded just 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn on Thursday last week forecast that this year would be “very tough.” Still, faltering domestic demand may be partly countered by rising export sales to Asian and emerging markets.
■SOFTWARE
Nintendo fights pirating gear
Gaming giant Nintendo said yesterday it had won US$556,500 in compensation from an Australian firm for selling illegal game-copying devices. Nintendo said it won a Federal Court case against online console and accessory seller GadgetGear over the gadgets, known as R4 cards, which pirate games for its handheld DS system. Nintendo said it was mulling further action against other Australian sellers of pirating gadgets and would use “all means available to it under the law.”
■SOFTWARE
Free Kindle for BlackBerry
Amazon on Thursday released a free Kindle for BlackBerry application that makes the online shop’s electronic books available for reading on the Research In Motion smartphones. The application available for download lets BlackBerry users access an online bookstore with more than 420,000 digital works. Amazon technology lets readers switch between smartphones, iPod Touch devices, computers and Kindle electronic tablets without losing their places in digital books. Amazon said its Kindle books would also be synched for reading on Apple iPad tablets.
■SOFTWARE
IBM to overhaul tax system
IBM won a 56 million euro (US$75.6 million) order to help overhaul Slovakia’s tax information system. The contract is for three years and IBM signed it with the Slovak Finance Ministry yesterday, Silvia Nosalova, a spokeswoman for the company’s Slovakia unit, said in an e-mailed statement.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the