RETAIL
Gap opens first Chinese shop
Clothing retailer Gap opened its first store in China yesterday, calling it a major step in an international expansion aimed at doubling the proportion of its revenue from outside the US. The Gap’s 1,140m2 Shanghai flagship is the first of four shops the group will open in China in coming weeks along with an online store, John Ermatinger, president of Gap Asia Pacific, told reporters. The US retailer, which also operates the Banana Republic and Old Navy chains, is set to open another store in Shanghai, two more in Beijing later this year and outlets in Hong Kong in the third quarter of next year, he said.
INSURANCE
Aegon earnings triple
The insurer Aegon NV says its third-quarter earnings more than tripled as it adjusted the value of some assets upward, had better gains on investments and better underlying earnings. A relatively weak euro also helped the Hague, Netherlands-based company, which operates Transamerica and has two-thirds of its business in the US. The company says its net profit was 657 million euros (US$907 million), up from 145 million euros in the same period last year. Sales of new life insurance policies were up 7 percent to 527 million euros, with strength in the US, Britain and emerging markets, Aegon said.
MEDIA
Bertelsmann’s profits jump
A pick-up in the advertising industry and an improved economy helped push up profits at German media giant Bertelsmann in the first nine months of the year, the firm said yesterday. Net profit to September was 259 million euros, the media giant said, compared with a net loss of 305 million euros in the same period last year. Meanwhile, sales rose 3.5 percent to 11 billion euros in the first nine months of the year.
AUTOMAKERS
Mitsubishi recalls vehicles
Japan’s fourth-largest automaker, Mitsubishi Motors, will recall about 250,000 vehicles in Japan over engine oil leaks, the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism said yesterday. The recall will cover seven small models, such as the family-sized eK Wagon, as well as two models produced for the Nissan Motor brand, the Otti and Clipper. A total of 247,663 units will be recalled, the ministry said.
AVIATION
Dreamliner test flights halted
Boeing Co halted test flights of its 787 Dreamliner on Wednesday, a day after an electrical fire aboard one of its test planes forced an emergency landing in Texas, but said it was too early to tell if the incident would push back the plane’s delivery schedule. The company said it was still investigating the fire, which was the first of its kind for the Dreamliner program and raised new questions for the company and for US aviation regulators.
IMMIGRATION
Ottawa ups investor ante
The Canadian government announced on Wednesday it was doubling requirements for foreign investors seeking to establish themselves in Canada, citing a high increase in demand. Starting on Dec. 1, foreign investors seeking to enter Canada as an immigrant must have personal net worth of at least C$1.6 million (US$1.6 million) and make an investment of C$800,000 or more, Citizenship and Immigration Canada said in a statement. The old criteria had specified C$800,000 and C$400,000, respectively.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by