SOUTH KOREA
DUP pans conglomerates
The main opposition party yesterday announced proposals to curb the country’s ever-expanding business conglomerates, ahead of next month’s parliamentary election. The Democratic United Party (DUP) said it was seeking to reduce the concentration of economic power in the hands of the family-oriented conglomerates known as chaebol. One of the most conspicuous DUP proposals is to revive a cap on equity investment by business groups, to stop them expanding their empires into every corner of the economy at the cost of small and medium-sized enterprises. The DUP also proposed reinstating restrictions which prevent the chaebol investing sums in other companies greater than 30 percent of their own net worth.
TRADE
US taxes Chinese wheels
The US on Monday set large punitive duties on imports of steel wheels from China that it said were unfairly priced and subsidized, in the latest sign of trade tension between the world’s two biggest economies. The US Commerce Department said Chinese producers were selling the steel wheels at prices 44.96 percent to 193.54 percent below fair value. It also said Chinese producers had received government subsidies ranging from 25.66 percent to 38.32 percent of the value of the wheels. The decision was a victory for Accuride Corp and Hayes Lemmerz International Inc, which filed a pair of petitions last year asking for import relief.
RETAIL
Amazon to purchase Kiva
Amazon.com Inc said on Monday it agreed to buy Kiva Systems Inc for US$775 million in cash, a deal that will bring more robotic technology to the e-commerce company’s giant network of warehouses. The acquisition, which has been approved by Kiva’s stockholders, is expected to close in the second quarter of this year, Amazon added in a statement. Kiva develops robots that zip around warehouses, grabbing and moving shelves and crates full of products. The technology helps retailers fulfill online orders quickly and with fewer workers.
SOFTWARE
Adobe misses forecasts
Adobe Systems Inc, maker of Photoshop and Acrobat software, said revenue growth slowed as sales of its widely used Creative Suite software fell, missing its forecasts, ahead of widely anticipated product launches this quarter. Revenues rose 1.7 percent to US$1.045 billion in its fiscal first quarter ended on March 2, slightly below the US$1.054 billion average forecast of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The software maker also reported a first-quarter profit, excluding one-time items, of US$0.57 per share, matching the average analyst forecast. Adobe expects to post second-quarter revenue of US$1.090 billion to US$1.140 billion and second-quarter profit, excluding items.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Starbucks takes on juice
Starbucks Corp is pushing beyond coffee with the opening of the first Evolution Fresh Inc juice store, the company said on Monday. Starbucks purchased the California-based juice maker in November last year for US$30 million. The first Evolution Fresh store is in Bellevue, Washington. Starbucks’ acquisition of Evolution Fresh is part of an attempt to broaden its business as consumers demand healthier products and it faces growing competition from the likes of McDonald’s Corp and Dunkin’ Donuts chain. Starbucks said the drinks will make their way into Starbucks’ company-owned
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to