Industry research firm comScore Inc on Thursday reported that US shoppers spent a total of US$42.3 billion online during the year-end holiday season — a 14 percent jump from the same period in 2011.
“The 2012 online holiday season was once again a very strong season with growth rates in the mid-teens as we reached record-setting spending levels,” comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni said.
US e-commerce started out “at a very healthy” rate in November, but consumers quickly eased back on spending, apparently due to concerns that Congress would fail to make a budget deal averting the “fiscal cliff.”
“You might say that had it not been for Congress, every other indicator suggested it would have been an even merrier Christmas for online retailers,” Fulgoni said.
A “December swoon” in online shopping coincided with a drop in consumer confidence attributed in large part to worries that unresolved budget matters would trigger automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the year’s end.
US President Barack Obama late on Wednesday signed a “fiscal cliff” deal into law, averting a financial crisis with global repercussions.
However, the IMF, rating agencies and analysts warned that the critical problem of deficits and debt are still hanging over the US economy.
Financial markets turned cool toward the last-minute agreement on Thursday, in contrast to the initial surge in stock markets which had greeted the deal on Wednesday.
The agreement averted across-the-board tax hikes and temporarily suspended automatic spending cuts which some had feared could have tipped the US economy back into recession.
While Democrat and Republican lawmakers passed a compromise, they only delayed the imposition of spending cuts for two months, meaning another debilitating stand-off is almost certain at the end of February.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last