JAPAN
Factory production rises
Factory production rose for the first time in two months as auto and machinery makers expanded output while bracing for global headwinds. Factory production in October rose 2.4 percent from the previous month, the government said yesterday. In September, it slumped 3.3 percent. Autos, general machinery and chemicals drove the latest increase, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s preliminary report. It described industrial production as “flat” and expects another dip this month. It estimates a 0.1 percent decline for last month and a 2.7 percent rise this month.
INDIA
Growth slows drastically
Economic growth slowed to 6.9 percent year-on-year in the last quarter, the country’s lowest in over two years, hit by a string of rate hikes and a weakening global economy, data showed yesterday. The last time the economy expanded at below 7 percent was in the financial quarter to June 2009 as Western economies were emerging from the global financial crisis. The figure for the July-to-September second quarter was in line with market forecasts. However, it was sharply below 7.7 percent expansion in the April-to-June quarter and 8.4 percent growth posted in the second quarter a year ago.
ELECTRONICS
Toshiba to close three plants
Electronics and manufacturing giant Toshiba Corp said yesterday it is to shut three semiconductor factories in Japan as part of a reorganization of its business, as it grapples with falling profits. It also said it would slow production at a number of plants during the winter because of the drop-off in demand for electronic goods in the West, where battered economies are showing few signs of life. Toshiba said the closure of the facilities would mean moving production to three other existing factories, allowing the company “to strengthen cost competitiveness and focus on higher value added products.” Toshiba last month announced net profit in the six months to September had dropped 18.5 percent.
INTERNET
Facebook to add protections
Facebook has settled complaints that it disregarded its users’ privacy, agreeing to establish a raft of measures to better protect its 800 million members’ data. The settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday will require Facebook to obtain its users’ consent for certain changes to privacy settings and subject Facebook to 20 years of independent audits. To ensure that Facebook does a better job, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg said the company had created two new corporate privacy officer positions to oversee Facebook products and policy.
INTERNET
Firm makes offer to Yahoo
A group of investors led by private-equity firm Silver Lake offered to buy a minority stake in Yahoo Inc for about US$16.60 a share, according to people with knowledge of the matter. That was lower than an offer made by private-equity firm TPG Capital, said two of the people. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), aiming to buy back the stake in itself owned by Yahoo, is monitoring the situation and might still enter the bidding, another person said. Silver Lake’s offer values Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo at US$20.6 billion, about 6 percent higher than its capitalization at Tuesday’s close. Yahoo aims to wrap up the deal by the end of the year, people said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”