SINGAPORE
Exports grow faster
Export growth unexpectedly accelerated last month as an increase in chemical and pharmaceutical shipments offset a decline in sales of electronics goods. Non-oil domestic exports climbed 10 percent from a year earlier, after a revised 6.9 percent gain in February, the city-state’s trade promotion agency said in a statement yesterday. The median estimate of 11 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for an increase of 5 percent. While shipments to Japan fell last month after the north Asian nation’s strongest earthquake on record led to a nuclear power crisis, exporters are increasing sales to China, Europe and the US. Non-electronics shipments, which include petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, increased 24.5 percent. Pharmaceutical shipments added 4.4 percent after advancing 1.3 percent in February.
ELECTRONICS
Toshiba to save electricity
Toshiba Corp plans to adjust work hours and have staff take longer holidays to save electricity over the summer after the March 11 earthquake caused power shortages in Japan. The electronics maker aims to have staff take “several weeks” of holidays in rotating groups between mid-June and September and work on Saturdays instead of some weekdays. The company plans to shift some production hours to weekends and nights at its plant, temporarily move servers outside of the areas affected by shortages and adjust lighting and air conditioning at its offices, according to a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange yesterday.
ELECTRONICS
Samsung may sell disc unit
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics is considering selling its loss-making hard-disc-drive business to raise cash for investment in new growth areas, a report said yesterday. Samsung is looking for a price of US$1.5 billion, but may consider a deal under US$1 billion, the Wall Street Journal said. A potential buyer is US-based hard-disc maker Seagate Technology, which accounted for 29 percent of such shipments in the fourth quarter of last year, it said. Samsung, which held about a 10.7 percent share of the global hard-disc-drive market in the fourth quarter, declined to comment on the report.
INDUSTRIES
Tata to invest US$30bn
India’s giant Tata Group has said it will invest almost US$30 billion mainly in the domestic market over the next five years as it seeks to double revenues to US$150 billion. The group, which has about 100 companies under its wing, said it plans to invest the money in sectors such as power, steel, automobiles, telecoms and chemicals. “We have become a significant player globally in each of the sectors that we are present in,” Tata Industries managing director Kishor Chaukar said in a weekend interview with the Press Trust of India.
HEALTHCARE
US giant in takeover talks
Swiss medical technology group Synthes said yesterday it was in takeover talks with US healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson, after media reports of a possible deal worth about US$20 billion. “In response to market speculation, Synthes Inc confirms that it is engaged in discussions with Johnson & Johnson about a potential business combination transaction,” the medical equipment maker said in a statement. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the US group was in talks to buy Synthes in a deal that could be valued at about US$20 billion.
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