JAPAN
Prices fall for 24 months
The government reported that consumer prices fell for the 24th straight month last month. It also said yesterday that the nation’s core consumer price index, which excludes fresh food, fell 0.3 percent from a year earlier. Tokyo has battled persistent deflation, and the latest fall in prices underlines prolonged deflationary pressure in the world’s No. 3 economy. The preliminary core consumer price index for the Tokyo area — considered an indicator of broader price trends for the country — also fell 0.3 percent this month.
TOBACCO
Cigarette shortages in Japan
Japan faces a potential cigarette shortage after Japan Tobacco, with a two-thirds share of the market, said it would halt tobacco product shipments domestically for 12 days from Wednesday next week due to procurement and production problems after this month’s devastating earthquake and tsunami. The former state monopoly, still half-owned by the government, said yesterday that the halt was required to restock inventories. Japan Tobacco said its shipment volume for next month would fall temporarily to about 25 percent of last month’s level and return to about 90 percent in May.
Software
Google holds on to software
Google on Thursday said it would keep a tight grip on its “Honeycomb” software crafted specially for tablet computers. The company optimized Android 3.0, known as “Honeycomb,” for a tablet arena dominated by Apple iPads, and was concerned that it could end up used in smartphones where it wouldn’t shine. Google planned to release “Honeycomb” as “open source” code for developers and gadget makers “as soon as it’s ready,” the company said.
AIRLINES
Embraer announces profits
Brazil’s Embraer, the world’s third-largest commercial airplane manufacturer, on Thursday announced it had posted profits of 600.2 million reals (US$341 million) according to the average exchange rate for last year, with total benefits for shareholders of 573.6 million reals. During the past year the company delivered 101 commercial aircraft and 145 business aircraft, it said. Embraer expects a profit of US$420 million this year and net income of US$5.6 billion.
SOFTWARE
Oracle net income up 78%
Database software maker Oracle Corp said on Thursday that its net income rose 78 percent in the fiscal third quarter, helped by a rise in new software license sales and the benefit of three full months of revenue from Sun Microsystems, a company it acquired last year. Net income for the quarter that ended on Feb. 28 increased from US$1.2 billion, or US$0.23 per share a year earlier to US$2.1 billion, or US$0.41 per share. Oracle said it expects fourth-quarter revenue to grow between 10 percent and 14 percent, or between US$10.5 billion and US$10.8 billion. The company forecast earnings of between US$0.69 and US0.73.
TELECOMS
French firm barred
Telekom Malaysia and mobile operator Axiata have barred a French equipment giant from bidding for new tenders for a year, a report said yesterday, after it admitted paying bribes for contracts. The Star newspaper said yesterday that Telekom Malaysia had suspended the company from tenders and contracts for 12 months from Jan. 5, while Axiata will impose the suspension from Feb. 18.
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