JAPAN
Trade deficit jumps
The country logged a bigger-than-expected trade deficit of ¥907.3 billion (US$11.5 billion) last month as the nation’s energy costs soared, official data showed yesterday. The ¥907.3 billion shortfall marked a record deficit for the month of May and was 5.4 percent higher than the ¥860.7 billion deficit in May last year. Last month’s imports jumped 9.3 percent to ¥6.14 trillion from a year earlier, largely due to rising purchases of foreign oil and gas. Exports, meanwhile, rose 10.0 percent to ¥5.23 trillion as shipments of automobiles and auto parts soared.
ELECTRONICS
Hynix to buy US firm
South Korea’s SK Hynix said yesterday it would buy a US-based IT firm for US$248 million to strengthen the performance of its flash memory devices, used in smartphones and tablet computers. The firm said it would acquire Link_A_Media Devices Corp, a California-based company founded in 2004 which develops “controller” devices. These interlock with processors to help increase the speed and reliability of NAND flash memory. SK Hynix expects its competitiveness to be further strengthened by the acquisition of the US firm, “which has extensive expertise in controller technology and excellent engineering resources,” chief executive O.C. Kwon said in a statement.
SMARTPHONES
RIM to cut more jobs
Research In Motion Ltd (RIM), the struggling maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, is cutting jobs as part of a broad cost-saving effort aimed at trimming US$1 billion in operating expenses. “RIM has committed to achieving significant efficiencies and operating cost reductions over the course of this fiscal year,” Tenille Kennedy, a spokeswoman for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, said in an e-mail on Tuesday. “Headcount reductions are part of this initiative.” The shakeup may lead to job cuts of 2,000 to 3,000, assuming RIM tries to eliminate 30 percent of the targeted operating expenses through labor reductions, according to Sameet Kanade, an analyst at Northern Securities Inc in Toronto.
RETAIL
H&M posts profit surge
Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M), Europe’s second-largest clothing retailer, posted the strongest profit increase in seven quarters as sales rose in the US and Asia. Net income gained 23 percent to 5.22 billion kronor (US$750 million) in the three months through May from 4.26 billion kronor in the year-earlier period, the Stockholm-based company said in a statement yesterday. That beat the 4.86 billion kronor average estimate of 14 analysts compiled by Bloomberg. H&M said it plans to add about 275 stores in the financial year through November, with China, the US and the UK being the largest areas of expansion. The retailer had 2,575 stores as of May 31.
INTERNET
Facebook changes app rules
Facebook is letting app developers charge subscription fees, in addition to existing one-time payments, for games and other applications on its site. Facebook Inc said on its developer blog on Tuesday that the subscription feature will be available next month. The changes open up a new revenue stream for developers as well as for Facebook, which takes a 30 percent cut from all payments on its site. People will still able to make payments on a one-time basis.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is