AUTOMAKERS
Toyota, BMW in green tie-up
Toyota Motor is expanding a tie-up with Germany’s BMW on hybrid and fuel-cell vehicle technology as the global automakers push further into the “green” market, a report said yesterday. The two firms’ top executives will announce in Germany this week that they are boosting a previously announced agreement involving joint research on next-generation lithium ion batteries, the Nikkei Shimbun business daily said. The initial tie-up involved technology for electric cars, and the broadened deal will focus on batteries for hybrid gasoline-electric and fuel-cell vehicles, it said. It marks the first time that Japan’s top automaker will supply its fuel-cell technology to a rival, it said.
AVIATION
London Gatwick profit rises
London’s Gatwick airport reported a strong rise in full-year profit, helped by traffic growth and the addition of new routes to emerging markets in Asia. London’s second-largest airport said yesterday its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 17 percent to £221.5 million (US$344.63 million) in the year to the end of March. Revenues rose 8.6 percent to £517.4 million. Gatwick, owned by Global Infrastructure Partners — an investment fund founded by Credit Suisse and General Electric — said passenger traffic grew 6.9 percent to 33.8 million, boosted by its investment program and new routes to emerging markets, including South Korea, Turkey, Vietnam, Hong Kong and China, Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate said.
ELECTRONICS
iPhone gets ‘check-in’ app
Apple Inc’s upcoming iPhone map application will include Yelp Inc’s “check-in” feature to let users broadcast their whereabouts to friends, according to materials Apple distributed to software developers. Apple Maps, which will replace Google Inc as the default location service in software set to debut later this year, will allow users to communicate through Yelp without exiting the map and opening a new app, the materials show. Yelp, a Web site that lets users review businesses ranging from plumbers to pet shops, introduced the service in 2010 to help build local vendors’ customer loyalty.
DAIRY INDUSTRY
Fonterra opens to outsiders
The New Zealand farmers who jointly own dairy giant Fonterra voted to allow outsiders to invest in the company for the first time. The 10,500 farmers who own the company voted yesterday in favor of starting a fund worth about US$400 million that would allow investors to buy non-voting shares. The investors will get dividends, but no ownership stake. About two-thirds of farmers who voted favored the move. Fonterra describes the move as a way to better secure its finances and says it remains committed to its farmers retaining 100 percent control and ownership of the company. Fonterra is the world’s largest exporter of dairy products, accounting for about 30 percent of the global dairy export trade.
AUTOMAKERS
Porsche banks on profit
Porsche SE is sticking to a forecast that it will be profitable this year, even as the sovereign debt crisis in Europe holds back car sales. Porsche and Volkswagen AG are likely to report increased vehicle deliveries this year, though “the second half of 2012 is certain to become more difficult and challenging for the automotive industry as a whole,” Porsche chief executive Martin Winterkorn said yesterday in the text of a speech to be delivered at the annual shareholders meeting.
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained