AUTOMOBILES
Nissan recalls vehicles
Nissan said yesterday it is recalling 2.14 million vehicles in the US, Japan, Europe and Asia, including the popular March and Mycra subcompacts, for an ignition problem that may stall the engine. No accidents have been reported that are suspected of being related to the defect, according to Yokohama-based Nissan Motor Co. A problem was found in an ignition-system part called the relay for vehicles produced from 2003 through 2006, including small cars like the March, Cube and Note, and about a dozen other models, such as the -Tiida sedan, Titan pickup and Infiniti QX56 luxury model.
SOUTH KOREA
Exports help double surplus
The nation’s current account surplus almost doubled last month compared to August on robust exports of ships and other key products, the central bank said yesterday. The surplus was US$4.06 billion last month compared to a revised US$2.19 billion the previous month. The figure was widely expected to bolster the won, which has risen steadily against the dollar this year despite repeated government intervention on the currency markets. In the January--September period, the surplus totaled US$23.73 billion, surpassing the central bank’s full-year target.
CHEMICALS
Bayer misses forecasts
German chemical company Bayer, maker of aspirin, said yesterday that its third--quarter net profit gained 12.4 percent to 280 million euros (US$386 million), well below analyst expectations. Bayer said it had taken 436 million euros in provisions for US court cases, including 386 million euros to settle legal action involving its Crop Science division in connection with genetically modified rice. Meanwhile, Bayer’s sales gained 16.1 percent to 8.58 billion euros in the three-month period, while core earnings before special items gained 10.5 percent to 1.66 billion euros.
CHEMICALS
Profits quintuple at BASF
German chemical group BASF said yesterday that strong demand worldwide pushed its third quarter net profit five times higher than in the same period a year earlier to 1.25 billion euros. The results confirmed a preliminary release last week, when BASF said sales had jumped by 23 percent to 15.8 billion euros amid a rebound in global economic activity. Sales in almost all of the group’s sectors increased in the third quarter, with the exception of agricultural solutions, it said.
ELECTRONICS
LG Q3 profit plunges 99%
LG Electronics said yesterday third-quarter net profit plunged 99 percent year-on-year, because of growing losses in its handset business and weak US and European demand for consumer electronics. The South Korean company, the world’s third-largest handset maker after Nokia and Samsung Electronics, posted a net profit of 7.57 billion won (US$6.7 million) in the July-to-September period, from 911.3 billion won a year earlier. It incurred an operating loss of 185.18 billion won compared to an 851 billion won profit a year earlier.
ELECTRONICS
NEC back in black
Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp said yesterday it returned to the black in the latest quarter after cutting costs and slashing its stake in a money-losing chip business. Net profit for the July-to-September quarter was ¥16.1 billion (US$200 million), reversing from a net loss of ¥9.8 billion a year earlier.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts