AUSTRALIA
Inflation lower than expected
The government said yesterday inflation rose a weaker-than-expected 0.1 percent in the March quarter, fueling speculation the central bank will cut interest rates next week. The Consumer Price Index had been expected to rise 0.6 percent for the quarter and analysts said the disappointing figure essentially locked in a stimulatory rate cut when the Reserve Bank of Australia meets on Tuesday next week.
FRANCE
Consumer confidence climbs
Consumer confidence unexpectedly climbed for a second month this month on optimism that a 10-month rise in joblessness is slowing. Household sentiment improved to 88 from 87 last month, national statistics office Insee said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Economists expected a reading of 87, according to the median of 14 estimates gathered by Bloomberg News.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Toshiba plans Thai factory
Toshiba said yesterday it would build a new chip factory in Thailand to replace one hit by record flooding last year that hammered Japanese manufacturers operating in the nation. The plant, scheduled to start production by the middle of next year, will be built in Prachinburi Province, about 140km northeast of Bangkok on a site with no major rivers nearby, Toshiba said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis earnings drop 18%
Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG has reported an 18 percent drop in earnings for the first quarter. Novartis said its net profit fell to US$2.33 billion from US$2.82 billion in the same period last year. The Basel-based company said in a statement yesterday that profits were affected by strong competition in the generic drugs market and manufacturing problems at a plant in Nebraska.
SEMICONDUCTORS
TI expects to beat estimates
Texas Instruments Inc (TI) forecast second-quarter revenue growth ahead of Wall Street estimates, signaling the end of a prolonged inventory-related decline in demand. The maker of chips used in everything from communications equipment to cars forecast current-quarter revenue of between US$3.22 billion and US$3.48 billion. This implies a mid-point above analyst expectations for US$3.29 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
SOFTWARE
Xbox infringes patent: ITC
The US International Trade Commission (ITC) on Monday issued a preliminary ruling that Microsoft infringed on Motorola Mobility patents in its hit Xbox 360 videogame consoles. Administrative law judge David Shaw backed four out of five Motorola claims that the company’s intellectual property was usurped in Xbox software for tasks such as efficiently moving video files or connecting wirelessly to the Internet.
UNITED STATES
Steel wire duties rejected
A trade panel on Monday rejected proposed duties on steel wire from China and Mexico after determining domestic producers were not harmed or threatened by the imports. The International Trade Commission voted 4-2 to deny duties in the case filed last year by steel wire companies in California, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Michigan and Oklahoma. The panel also denied duties last week in two other cases involving refrigerators from South Korea and Mexico and steel wheels from China.
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