AUTOMAKERS
Toyota to raise production
Toyota has told its suppliers in Japan to prepare for ramped up production next year and the following years, signaling that the automaker is confident it’s back on a growth track after being hit by massive recalls and the tsunami disaster. Toyota Motor Corp spokesman Paul Nolasco said yesterday that there was a meeting with suppliers earlier this week so they could be ready to increase production. He said the numbers were guidelines, not targets. Citing unidentified Toyota officials, Kyodo News reported that the plan for next year calls for production of 8.9 million vehicles — a record for Toyota — with 3.5 million vehicles produced in Japan and 5.4 million units overseas. Nolasco declined to confirm the numbers.
BANKING
Standard Chartered profits
Standard Chartered, the British-based emerging markets bank, said yesterday that net profits rose 20 percent in the first half to a record US$2.52 billion as revenues soared. Profit after tax for the six months to June compared with net profit of US$2.10 billion a year earlier and beat expectations of US$2.42 billion, according to a poll of analysts from Dow Jones Newswires. Revenues jumped 11 percent to US$8.76 billion in the first half.
BANKING
Societe Generale slumps
French banking giant Societe Generale said yesterday its second-quarter net profit slumped 31 percent as it took a charge for its exposure to Greek debt and warned of a difficult 2012. The bank said its three months to June net profit came to 747 million euros (US$1.07 billion) after it set aside 395 million euros for losses on its holdings of Greek government bond. Societe Generale also downgraded its outlook, saying that its forecast for a net profit of 6 billion euros next year “looks difficult to achieve.”
TRADING
LivingSocial expands
LivingSocial agreed to buy South Korean online daily deal provider TicketMonster in a stock-swap to expand further into the Asian market, the companies said on Tuesday, without disclosing the value of the deal. The acquisition is LivingSocial’s largest to date and comes as the No. 2 US daily deal player steps up overseas competition with Groupon.
COMPANIES
Investors block Kirin bid
A US$2.53 billion bid by Japan’s Kirin Holdings Co for a controlling stake in Brazilian brewer Schincariol Group is failing to win over investors in either company. Schincariol minority shareholders have vowed to block the sale in an apparent family feud over the fate of the company, and investors in Japan appear to worry the bid may be too expensive for the Japanese drinks company.
BANKING
Banks need restructuring
South Korea’s financial watchdog said yesterday it had asked for an injection of US$472 million in state funds next year to restructure the ailing savings bank sector. Savings banks have been under severe strain because of their exposure to the weak real-estate industry, with eight suspended because of their poor finances. The Financial Services Commission said it asked the finance ministry to allocate 500 billion won (US$472 million) from next year’s budget to restructure the distressed sector. The request requires governmental and parliamentary consent.
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