MACROECONOMICS
Finland slips into recession
Finland’s economy unexpectedly joined the euro-area in a recession last quarter as the region’s debt crisis weighed on confidence and sapped investments. GDP contracted 0.1 percent from the prior quarter, when it shrank 1.1 percent, Statistics Finland in Helsinki said yesterday. That missed the estimates of three economist surveyed by Bloomberg for growth of 0.2 percent to 0.4 percent. On an annual basis, GDP fell 1.2 percent. Investments fell 1.1 percent from the previous quarter, with construction spending dropping 1.4 percent, and machinery and equipment investments contracting 2.5 percent. Exports grew 2.4 percent and consumer spending expanded 0.8 percent from the prior three months.
BANKING
US banks’ profits rise 6.6%
US banks are enjoying their best profits in six years and are lending a bit more freely. The gradual improvement suggests that the industry will sustain its healing from the worst financial crisis in decades and help strengthen the economy. The industry earned US$37.6 billion from July through September — a 6.6 percent increase from its earnings in the same quarter last year. For the first time since 2009, the stronger profits were due mainly to higher revenue rather than less money set aside by the banks to cover losses, data issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp showed on Tuesday. Loans to consumers rose nearly 1 percent from July-September last year.
TECHNOLOGY
Yahoo acquires OnTheAir
Yahoo has bought another Silicon Valley mobile startup as CEO Marissa Mayer tries to create more compelling products for smartphones and tablet computers. Tuesday’s acquisition of OnTheAir follows Yahoo’s recent purchase of a mobile startup called Stamped. In both cases, Yahoo was drawn more by the engineering talent working at the startups than the services that they have been offering. Yahoo did not disclose how much it paid for OnTheAir, which is based in San Francisco. The service enables users to hold online video chats in a talk-show format. Yahoo did not say whether it intends to continue OnTheAir’s service.
DELIVERY SERVICES
FedEx offers voluntary exit
FedEx will be offering some employees up to two years’ pay to leave the company next year. The voluntary program is part of an effort by the second-biggest package delivery company to cut annual costs by US$1.7 billion within three years. Employees who volunteer for the program will receive four weeks of pay for every year of service, capped at two full years of base pay. Those eligible will be notified in February, and have until April to apply. They will be informed in May if they are accepted. The first wave of employees will leave on May 31, the last day of FedEx’s fiscal year.
TELECOMS
Windows phones on the rise
Shipments of smartphones running Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system are forecast to jump 71 percent over the next four years, outpacing Google Inc’s Android and Apple Inc’s iOS, research firm IDC said. Windows’ growth will vault it past Research In Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry, making it No. 3 in the industry in 2016, with 11.4 percent of the market, it said in a report on Tuesday. Android will remain first, though its share will slip to 63.8 percent in 2016 from 68.3 percent this year. Apple’s iOS, which runs the iPhone, will inch up to 19.1 percent from 18.8 percent, staying in second place.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)