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.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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