CHIPMAKERS
Micron names new CEO
Micron Technology Inc named Mark Durcan as its chief executive on Saturday, replacing Steve Appleton, who died on Friday after crashing an experimental plane. Durcan, 51, who had been planning to retire in August, was appointed by the board of Boise, Idaho-based Micron after agreeing to fill in temporarily. Robert Switz will become chairman of the board and Mark Adams, head of sales, was named company president, Micron said in a statement. Durcan, who joined Micron in 1984, had been scheduled to hand over his role as chief operating office to Adams in August. Adams joined Micron in 2006 as part of Micron’s acquisition of Lexar Media Inc. They will pick up where Appleton left off, navigating the sole US maker of computer memory through a period of volatile price swings that left Micron unprofitable eight of the past 14 years.
HUNGARY
Official outlines bailout path
Budapest must improve its investment environment and slow legislative changes to obtain an international bailout, Mihaly Varga, chief of staff to Prime Minister Viktor Orban, told Magyar Hirlap in an interview. Budapest is seeking an aid package from the IMF and EU of about 15 billion euros (US$20 billion) to 20 billion euros, Varga said. The “outlines” of a deal might be done in one or two months as it is in the interest of both sides to come to an agreement quickly, Varga told the newspaper. The IMF had several suggestions which the government “must take seriously,” including on the country’s investment environment, Varga said, adding that speed of changes initiated by the Cabinet had been difficult to follow for some investors.
PHILIPPINES
Deficit comes in under cap
Manilas’ budget deficit for last year will be about 192 billion pesos (US$4.5 billion), or 2 percent of GDP, against a ceiling of 300 billion pesos, according to Budget Secretary Butch Abad. The deficit will be capped at 2.6 percent of GDP this year, Abad said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The revenue target for this year is 1.5 trillion pesos, against planned spending of 1.8 trillion pesos, Abad said. Overseas remittances are “projected to spike” 6 percent to 7 percent a year, and the business process outsourcing industry might grow 20 percent this year, he said. Inflation will be within a 3 percent to 5 percent target, Abad said.
BANKING
South Korean profits fall
Profits at South Korean branches of foreign banks fell 16 percent last year as income from interest and securities trading fell, the country’s financial watchdog said. Combined net income of the 38 branches of overseas lenders totaled 1.23 trillion won (US$1.1 billion), the South Korean Financial Supervisory Service said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Five of the outlets posted losses, while combined profit at 16 investment banks declined 30 percent from a year earlier, according to the report, which did not identify the companies. Profits at six banks from the Americas declined 30 percent, while net income at 15 European banks slid 33 percent, the watchdog said. In contrast, 15 Asian lenders boosted their profit by 6.6 percent, while earnings at two Australian banks also rose. The regulator said it would increase monitoring of any strategic changes by the banks, as well as the effect of the branches’ operations on the local market.
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