INTERNET
AOL to fire employees
AOL Inc is firing as many as 40 people in the group that includes its AOL Instant Messenger service, while executives Eric van Miltenburg and Jason Shellen depart, three people with knowledge of the matter said. David Tempkin, who now runs the mobile group, will become head of the consumer applications division, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the changes have not been announced. That arrangement indicated that AOL wanted to impose fiscal discipline on the unit, Clayton Moran, an analyst at Benchmark Co in Delray Beach, Florida, said in December. Last year, the company combined the dial-up Internet access business with Web services, including AIM, into a new group reporting to chief financial officer Arthur Minson.
INTERNET
Google+ aims to add users
Google Inc aims to more than double the number of people on its social networking service this year, which has already reached 100 million active users. The growth of Google+ has surpassed any estimates the company had, said Vic Gundotra, a senior vice president in charge of social initiatives. Google unveiled the service in June last year, challenging the dominance of Facebook Inc’s site. Google added the social networking service in a bid to keep users on its site longer and boost ad revenue. The company said in January that Google+ had topped 90 million members, more than double the amount in October. Still, its user base is dwarfed by Facebook Inc’s 845 million-plus members. Moreover, ComScore Inc estimates that Google+’s members spend a fraction of the time on the site that their Facebook counterparts do.
AUTOMAKERS
Brazil wants Mexican limits
The Brazilian government officially asked Mexico to set a US$1.4 billion annual limit on the automobiles it exports to Brazil, an official with direct knowledge of trade talks between the two nations said on Friday. Brazil has threatened to scrap a decade-old automotive trade pact with Mexico and start charging tariffs on Mexican-built cars as it battles a growing trade deficit in the auto sector. Officials from the two nations have held talks since February in an effort to reach an accord. Brazil’s imports of Mexican vehicles jumped 40 percent last year to a value of more than US$2 billion. Brazil exported just $372 million worth of cars to Mexico, generating complaints from Brazil’s domestic auto sector.
MEDIA
Robinson package revealed
Janet Robinson, the New York Times Co CEO who was pushed out in December, received an exit package, including stock options and retirement benefits, of more than US$23 million. Robinson gets pension and supplemental retirement income valued at US$11.4 million, performance awards of US$5.39 million, restricted stock units worth US$1.07 million and stock options worth US$694,164, according to the company’s proxy statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. She will also earn US$4.5 million in consulting fees this year. The December departure of Robinson, 61, left a leadership vacuum at Times Co, publisher of the namesake newspaper. The company faces falling revenue, profit squeezed by pension costs and pressure from members of the Ochs-Sulzberger family to restore a dividend once worth more than US$20 million a year.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by