ECONOMY
IMF boosts growth estimate
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde upwardly revised the fund’s estimate of economic growth among developed nations, which she said would increase by 1.6 percent next year, up from an earlier estimated 1.5 percent. She told Chile’s La Tercera newspaper that developing countries should grow by 5.6 percent, while the global economy is expected to expand by 3.6 percent. “So 2013 will be a little better than 2012,” the Chilean daily quotes her as saying. Lagarde was in Chile on Thursday and Friday for a visit that included a meeting with Chilean President Sebastian Pinera.
TELECOMS
iPhone sets record: Apple
US tech giant Apple announced on Sunday it had sold “more than 2 million” of the latest model of iPhone after the popular smartphone’s first weekend on the market in the Asian powerhouse. “Customer response to iPhone 5 in China has been incredible, setting a new record with the best first weekend sales ever in China,” Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook said in a statement. Launched at the end of September in the US and nine other countries, the iPhone 5 “will be available in more than 100 countries by the end of December, making it the fastest iPhone rollout ever,” the company said.
APPAREL
Trading in Billabong halted
Trading on shares in Australian surf and sportswear company Billabong was halted yesterday after reports that a former director was leading a takeover bid valued at US$555.2 million. Paul Naude, who last month stepped aside as director and president of Billabong’s US business to prepare a buy-out bid, is believed to have offered A$1.10 (US$1.16) per share, the Australian Financial Review said. The offer from a consortium led by Naude — and which includes a private equity firm — values the company at A$526.8 million and is conditional on due diligence, Dow Jones said, without naming its source. Billabong International Ltd would not comment.
COMPUTERS
Cisco seeks buyer for Linksys
Cisco Systems Inc, the largest maker of equipment for computer networks, has hired Barclays PLC to find a buyer for Linksys, which makes routers for home wireless access, said people with knowledge of the situation. The unit may attract the interest of TV set makers seeking a recognized brand and technology, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is not public. Linksys is likely to fetch much less than the US$500 million Cisco paid for it in 2003 because it is a mature consumer business with low margins, the people said. Both Cisco and Barclays declined to comment.
ECONOMY
Warning from Merkel
Europe will have to work “very hard” to maintain its generous welfare system and remain competitive, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a newspaper interview yesterday. “If Europe today accounts for just over 7 percent of the world’s population, produces around 25 percent of global GDP and has to finance 50 percent of global social spending, then it’s obvious that it will have to work very hard to maintain its prosperity and way of life,” Merkel told the Financial Times in an interview. Europe will have to spend more on research and education and overhaul its tax and labor markets to restore competitiveness, she said.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts