AUTOMAKERS
GM delays second Volt shift
General Motors Co (GM) is delaying plans to add a second shift at the factory that makes Chevrolet Volt electric cars. The company said on Friday it has found ways to make one shift more efficient, so it can produce the same number of cars as two shifts. Spokesperson Chris Lee said GM still will add 300 workers at the Detroit-Hamtramck plant — but not a second shift — by the end of this year to make more Volts. In May, the company announced it would add a second shift late this year to increase Volt production from 16,000 a year to 60,000. GM said on Friday the change had nothing to do with Volt sales, which have been slower than expected.
TELECOMS
Sprint looks to raise funds
Sprint Nextel Corp said it needs to raise more money and signaled it will burn through its cash reserves, raising concerns about the wireless provider’s financial stability and business strategy. Sprint outlined a plan to spend US$7 billion on a network upgrade that it wants to complete by the end of 2013, and chief financial officer Joe Euteneur said Sprint would pay for the upgrade with cash from its balance sheet and by raising capital. The company also flashed a presentation slide saying it expects its liquidity to improve after 2013, implying a tough two years before that. Shares fell 20 percent to close at US$2.41 on Friday, while its credit default swaps rose, reflecting greater concerns about a default risk.
UNITED STATES
Consumer debt drops
Consumers unexpectedly pared debt in August after 10 straight months of gains amid rising concerns about the economy, central bank data showed on Friday. Consumer credit fell to a seasonally adjusted US$2.44 trillion, a decline at an annual rate of 4.6 percent, the Federal Reserve said. According to the Fed data, the decline in August was led by a drop in nonrevolving credit, such as automobile financing and student loans. Revolving credit, essentially credit-card transactions, fell for the second month running in August, at a rate of 3.4 percent per year.
AUTOMAKERS
JAC to build Brazil factory
Chinese automaker JAC Motors (江淮汽車) said on Friday it will invest US$500 million to build a factory in Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia, its first outside China. The factory, slated to open in 2014, will have the capacity to produce 100,000 units, JAC said in a statement. A total of 3,500 jobs are expected to be created. The investment will be made by the parent company in China together with the SHC Group, which represents its business interests in Brazil. In August, the company put the preliminary value of its investment at US$900 million.
TELECOMS
EU approves Skype bid
The European Commission has approved Microsoft Corp’s proposed US$8.5 billion acquisition of the Internet voice and video communication provider Skype, saying the deal would not significantly impede competition in Europe. The approval, announced on Friday, appears to be the final step in the technology giant’s effort to acquire Skype. Brad Smith, general counsel and executive vice president of Microsoft, said in an e-mailed statement that the company is pleased with the decision. Smith says it’s “an important milestone,” because the company has “now received clearance from both the United States and the European Union.” The European Commission is the EU’s executive branch.
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],”
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
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