AUTOMAKERS
Toyota issues global recall
Toyota Motor Corp is recalling about 550,000 vehicles worldwide — mostly in the US — for possible problems related to the crankshaft pulley on the engine that could make it harder to steer. The company’s US sales unit said in a statement yesterday that if the problem is not corrected the belt for the power steering pump could become detached from the pulley. The recall affects 283,200 Toyota brand cars and 137,000 Lexus vehicles in the US, including the 2004 and 2005 Camry, Highlander and Sienna models. Toyota spokesperson Dion Corbett said about 38,000 cars are being recalled in Japan, as well as 25,000 in Australia and New Zealand. There have been no reports of accidents or injuries related to the problems, Corbett said.
HOUSING
Fannie Mae posts Q3 loss
US mortgage giant Fannie Mae lost nearly US$5.1 billion in the third quarter, a 76 percent rise from the previous quarter and nearly four times the same period one year earlier, the company reported on Tuesday. The state-owned housing lender said it would ask the US Treasury for another injection of US$7.8 billion to cover both the losses and the amount of dividends it is obliged to pay the government for its rescue in 2008. Fannie blamed the quarterly results equally on US$4.5 billion in losses on pre--housing crisis lending and US$5.5 billion worth of losses on derivatives taken out during the quarter against the risk of higher interest rates. Against that, Fannie said it had earned US$5.5 billion in net revenue.
BEER
AB InBev misses Q3 target
Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (AB InBev), the world’s biggest brewer, reported third-quarter revenue that missed analysts’ estimates as it sold less beer in the US and central and eastern Europe, offsetting gains in Latin America. So-called organic sales rose 3.6 percent, the Belgium-based company said yesterday in a statement. The median estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was 4.1 percent. The volume of its own brands of beer sold fell 0.6 percent. The brewer of Stella Artois has raised prices in the US and shifted toward more expensive products as sales slow. Market share fell 25 basis points in the quarter as the company lost sales in so-called sub-premium brands.
RETAIL
Electronics sales to increase
Sales of electronics are set to light up an otherwise dreary US holiday shopping season, the US Consumer Electronics Association said. The trade group released figures on Tuesday predicting an increase in holiday electronics sales of 5.6 percent this year, with the average household spending US$246 on gadgets, roughly a third of its gift budget of US$769. Tablets and computers ranked second and third on the list of gifts most sought after by adults, with clothes taking the top slot. Peace, happiness, and money followed behind all three, the association said.
FRANCE
Zero growth forecast in Q4
The economy is set for zero growth in the last quarter of the year, the Bank of France warned yesterday, two days after the government announced a new round of austerity measures. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Budget, Public Accounts and Civil Administration said that the central government budget deficit, a component of the overall deficit, had fallen by 30 billion euros (US$41.5 billion) at the end of September on a 12-month basis, to 92.7 billion euros, as the result of big fall in spending and a slight rise in revenues.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts