ELECTRONICS
High-tech to drive buying
New high-tech devices will get US consumers to open their wallets for the upcoming holiday season, driving retail spending higher, a survey showed on Tuesday. The Consumer Electronics Association found overall holiday spending is expected to increase 11 percent this year while spending on consumer electronics gifts also likely will increase. On average, consumers plan to spend US$1,634 overall this holiday, up 11 percent from last year, the survey found. Consumers plan to allocate US$842 from their overall budget to gifts, up 9 percent from last year, and US$252 of that will be for consumer electronics, it said.
COMPUTERS
IBM Q3 earnings unchanged
IBM says its third-quarter earnings remained unchanged from a year ago despite an unexpected charge and a steeper drop in revenue than analysts anticipated. The results announced on Tuesday showed IBM Corp earned US$3.8 billion, or US$3.33 per share, in the July-September period. The company delivered the same net income a year ago, but its per-share earnings were US$0.14 lower last year because the company had more outstanding stock then. Revenue for the quarter fell 5 percent from last year to US$24.7 billion. That figure was about US$1 billion below analyst projections.
MANUFACTURING
ASML offers to buy Cymer
ASML Holding NV, the biggest supplier of equipment to semiconductor manufacturers, has offered to buy Cymer Inc of the US for around US$2.55 billion in cash and shares. Cymer makes the focused beams of light that ASML uses in its lithography machines, which trace out the circuitry of computer chips. ASML said its offer of US$20 in cash and 1.1502 ASML shares per Cymer share represents a 61 percent premium to Cymer’s average closing price over the past month. Cymer shares closed at US$47.83 on Tuesday. Also yesterday, ASML reported third quarter earnings of 322.6 million euros (US$422.4 million), down from 350.1 million euros a year ago. Sales fell 16 percent to 1.29 billion euros.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Danone reports solid sales
Yogurt maker Danone says its sales grew solidly in the third quarter of the year, driven by its booming waters business and strong growth in Asia. The company behind Activia yogurt yesterday said revenue grew 9.4 percent in the July-to-September period to 5.3 billion euros. The Paris-based maker of Evian bottled water warned this year that the economic slowdown in Europe would hit its performance. Its third-quarter sales were flat for the region, which accounts for about half of its revenue. However, Asian sales grew by 28 percent.
AUTOMAKERS
A123 files for bankruptcy
Short of cash and hurting from weak sales of electric cars, battery maker A123 Systems Inc filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday and quickly sold its automotive assets. The moves came one day after the company warned it likely would miss debt payments and could be headed for restructuring. Auto parts maker Johnson Controls Inc will buy the company’s automotive business for US$125 million. A123 has struggled for several years as Americans have been slow to embrace electric cars. The company has yet to post a profit and lost US$83 million in the second quarter. Just two months ago, A123 announced a US$450 million lifeline from Chinese auto parts maker Wanxiang Group Corp (萬向集團), but A123 said in a statement that the deal has been scrapped.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”