French carmaker Renault marked its return to fast-growing India yesterday with the launch of a luxury sedan designed especially for the Asian market. Renault India managing director Marc Nassif said the launch of the Fluence marked “the real first phase” of the carmaker’s reentry into India.
Its earlier foray in the nation was the four-door Logan built with former local partner Mahindra and Mahindra, which aimed at the mid-size segment.
However, the Logan, launched in 2007, found few buyers, and was panned by critics for its dated looks and high price, and Renault ended the joint venture last year.
The Fluence, to be sold for about 1.3 million rupees (US$29,000), is the first Renault-branded car to be assembled in India at the automaker’s plant in Chennai.
“We are confident it will not only shake up the [luxury] segment, but also give Indian customers their first taste of what Renault is capable of bringing to the Indian market,” Nassif told reporters.
Renault has said it also plans to introduce a sports utility vehicle this year, to be known as the Koleos, followed by three more cars next year. India, along with Brazil and Russia, is among the top three markets for Renault’s international expansion plans.
The group and its Japanese partner Nissan intend to make an ultra-low cost car to be sold in India and other emerging markets that will be designed and manufactured by Bajaj Auto, the country’s leading motorbike and rickshaw maker.
The car, expected to launch next year, is expected to rival the world’s cheapest car — the Nano — produced by India’s leading vehicle maker Tata Motors.
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
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