TELECOMS
China threatens retaliation
China threatened on Thursday to retaliate if the EU formally opens an investigation into alleged anti-competitive behavior by Chinese mobile telecom equipment companies, reportedly Huawei (華為) and ZTE (中興). “If the European side insists on opening an investigation, the Chinese side will according to WTO rules and Chinese law take firm measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests, and the consequences must be borne by the party provoking the friction,” Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesman Shen Danyang (沈丹陽) said in Beijing. The case would be the first to be launched without a complaint by European companies, but rather by the European Commission itself.
FINANCE
Trader quits after losses
A senior trader with BNP Paribas left the French bank last year after his US-based unit traded losses of more than US$10 million, the Financial Times reported on Thursday on its Web site. Lionel Crassier, US head of equities at the time, was ordered back from New York in March after he lost the bank between US$10 million and US$25 million, according to sources cited by the newspaper. He subsequently left the bank.
BANKING
Chairman faces charges
The head of Societe Generale’s Russian unit could face up to seven years in prison after investigators charged him on Thursday with soliciting a US$1.5 million bribe in what one banking source said was a possible setup to muscle the French lender out of the country. The charges were pressed against Rosbank chairman Vladimir Golubkov and senior vice-president Tamara Polyanitsyna after both were detained by police on Wednesday in a dramatic sting operation which found stacks of 5,000 ruble (US$158) notes laid out on Golubkov’s desk.
TECHNOLOGy
Downloads pass milestone
Apple on Thursday announced that the number of mini-programs downloaded from its App Store has surpassed the 50 billion milestone, and celebrated the moment with a US$10,000 prize. The California-based company said that it gave a US$10,000 App Store gift card to an Ohio man who downloaded the 50 billionth app — a free word game called Say the Same Thing. People are downloading mini-programs from the App Store at an average rate of 800 per second, Apple said.
INVESTMENT
Buffett’s firm downgraded
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc was downgraded by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) Ratings Services on Thursday. The ratings agency dropped its investment-grade counter-party credit rating for the Omaha, Nebraska-based holding company and all the debt it guarantees by one notch to “AA” from “AA+.” However, all of Berkshire’s insurance subsidiaries kept their “AA+” ratings. S&P said its rating reflects Berkshire’s strong financial risk profile and strong balance sheet, and Berkshire still enjoys the highest rating of any insurance company.
BANKING
ABN Amro to cut staff
ABN Amro Group NV, the third-biggest Dutch lender, said it plans to cut about 400 additional jobs to reduce costs after first-quarter profit tumbled 17 percent. Net income fell to 415 million euros (US$534 million) from 503 million euros in the year-earlier period, the Amsterdam-based state-owned bank said yesterday.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is