AUTOMOBILES
Toyota set to cut board size
Japan’s Toyota Motor is set to unveil a long-term strategic plan today that will sharply reduce the size of its board and focus on emerging market growth, a report said yesterday. The world’s largest automaker will aim to sharply cut the number of board members, a move that has stoked tensions within the Japanese firm’s management, the Wall Street Journal reported. The widely anticipated plan will provide Toyota with a blueprint for the decade and also give a glimpse of president Akio Toyoda’s management style and goals, the report said. While the automaker has declined to give details about the new strategy prior to its formal announcement, the WSJ cited sources as saying it plans to roughly halve the number of board members from the current 27.
JAPAN
Surplus shrinks 47.6 percent
Japan’s current account surplus shrank 47.6 percent from a year earlier in January as the trade balance fell into its first deficit in two years, the finance ministry said yesterday. The surplus in the current account — the broadest measure of trade with the rest of the world — stood at ¥461.9 billion (US$5.6 billion) in the month. Separate data released yesterday by the Bank of Japan showed bank lending continued to drop last month for the 15th straight month, a sign that many firms remain cautious about the economic outlook.
AVIATION
Air China signs Boeing deal
Boeing says it has signed a deal to sell five of its new 747-8 Intercontinental passenger jets to Air China. Boeing and Air China, the country’s flag carrier, didn’t say how much the deal was worth. At list prices it would be about US$1.6 billion but airlines typically get big discounts.Air China will use the planes to expand its international routes. The jets can carry 467 passengers and feature a new wing design and upgraded flight deck. The order was announced yesterday at the start of an air show in Hong Kong. It still needs Chinese government approval.
INTERNET
YouTube buys TV company
YouTube announced on Monday that it bought Internet television company Next New Networks to improve content for the Google-owned video-sharing Web site. The New York City-based startup was launched four years ago and is home to popular networks, such as “Barely Political” and “Indy Mogul,” which it billed as the “filmmaking network for the YouTube generation.” Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and YouTube stressed that it was not getting into the content creation business.
INTERNET
Skype to launch advertising
Internet phone company Skype says it is launching advertising on its service for the first time. The Luxembourg-based company, which is still 30 percent owned by online auction house eBay Inc, also on Monday announced its first advertisers: Groupon Inc, Nokia Corp, Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures and Visa Inc. Skype said its platform, with 145 million users a month and 29 million at peak times, is attractive for brands to market their products. The platform will support large-format, rich interactive ads.
INTERNET
Google purchases UK site
Google bought British price comparison site BeatThatQuote.com for £37.7 million (US$61 million) on Monday. BeatThatQuote offers price comparisons on a wide range of products, from insurance to legal services and from utilities to retail items.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is