SEMICONDUCTORS
TI lowers forecast range
Texas Instruments Inc (TI), whose chips are used in everything from cellphones to cars, has slightly lowered the high end of its fourth-quarter earnings and revenue forecast. TI vice president Ron Slaymaker said on a conference call on Tuesday that demand for chips for laptops, hard disk drives and televisions had been weak, while chips for video games and smart phones were in strong demand. TI now expects net income of US$0.61 to US$0.65 per share in the current quarter. It earlier predicted US$0.59 to US$0.67 per share. It also expects revenue of between US$3.43 billion and US$3.57 billion. Analysts are looking for about US$3.5 billion on average.
ECONOMY
IMF welcomes Irish budget
The IMF on Tuesday welcomed the Irish parliament’s approval of next year’s budget, which meets EU and IMF requirements to secure an 85 billion euro (US$112.3 billion) international bailout loan for the country. “We welcome approval of the 2011 budget ... This is a clear sign of Ireland’s strong commitment to tackle its problems and harness the impressive growth potential of this open and dynamic economy,” the Washington-based IMF said in a statement. Ireland on Tuesday announced an annual budget that includes 6 billion euros in savings via tax hikes and spending cuts, aimed at slashing its public deficit from about 32 percent of GDP this year to 9.4 percent next year.
TRADE
German exports slide
Germany’s Federal Statistical Office yesterday said that exports dropped 1.1 percent on the month in October — giving up some of the ground they gained the previous month. The agency said that Germany — the world’s second--biggest exporter after China — exported 86.8 billion euros in goods and services worth in October. The decline followed a strong 3 percent gain in September. In year-on-year terms, exports were up 19.8 percent. Imports were up 0.3 percent on the month and 21 percent year-on-year in October at 72.6 billion euros.
BANKING
BOA agrees to settle
Bank of America Corp (BOA) will pay US$137 million to settle allegations by authorities that it defrauded buyers of municipal bond derivatives. On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice said the bank would pay restitution to federal and state agencies as part of its admission of bid--rigging and other anti--competitive practices in selling municipal bond derivatives to various state agencies, municipalities, school districts and nonprofits. The settlement is the latest in a far-reaching, industrywide probe that dates to 2007 of the municipal bond derivatives market.
INTERNET
Amazon plans cloud books
Amazon will make its Kindle electronic books available for reading on Web browsers beginning early next year, with people’s digital collections saved in the Internet “cloud.” Amazon executives on Tuesday showed off “Kindle for the Web” at a Google press event introducing a new, swifter version of the California technology giant’s Chrome software for navigating the Internet. Kindle for the Web will be launched early next year and the application will be available in a Google Web Store that made its debut on Tuesday. Kindle books will be accessible through any standard browser, which will enable new features such as being able to do Internet searches on words highlighted in digital works.
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],”
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
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