GERMANY
Consumer confidence up
A survey has found that low unemployment and solid wage increases have helped push consumer confidence to a nearly six-year high. The GfK research institute said yesterday that its forward-looking consumer climate index rose to 6.8 points for next month from 6.5 this month. That is the highest level since a reading of 7.3 in September 2007. The unemployment rate was 6.8 percent last month, a contrast with rates above 20 percent in the European countries worst-hit by the debt crisis. Industrial workers and others in the country, which has Europe’s biggest economy, have secured wage raises well above the inflation rate this year.
SOUTH KOREA
Superfast network takes off
SK Telecom yesterday announced the launch of a new-generation mobile network that offers speeds twice that of its existing long-term evolution (LTE) network and 10 times that of 3G services. The new LTE-Advanced, which will be immediately available in Seoul and 40 other cities, will allow users to download an entire movie in about 40 seconds. The network was launched in conjunction with a new LTE-A capable version of Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone, and SK Telecom said half a dozen other compatible smartphones were expected to be offered in the second half of this year.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford leads the pack in China
Ford Motor Co, the fastest-growing major foreign automaker in China this year, said its sales gain will outpace the industry this year as customers buy new models. “We don’t see the growth rate backing off for the rest of this year,” John Lawler, head of Ford in China, said yesterday in Shanghai, without giving figures. “We’re seeing great reception of our new vehicles.” Ford sales surged 48 percent in the first five months of the year in China, beating foreign peers including Toyota Motor Corp and Volkswagen AG, on demand for the Focus compact and EcoSport and Kuga SUVs.
NEW ZEALAND
Mail carrier slashes jobs
New Zealand Post yesterday said it was slashing 120 jobs as its traditional mail services continue to decline by 8 percent a year in the face of alternatives such as e-mail and text messaging. The state-owned postal service said the jobs will go as part of a plan to halve the number of mail processing centers it operates from six to three. Chief executive Brian Roche said New Zealand Post was now carrying 200 million less items of mail a year than a decade ago and volumes were slipping at a rate of 8 percent annually.
ECONOMY
World bank to lend a hand
The head of the World Bank said on Tuesday that the global lender stands ready to help developing countries cope with a rise in interest rates as a result of the US Federal Reserve’s plan to scale back its stimulus program. “There’s a tremendous amount of concern about what could happen,” World Bank president Jim Yong Kim told reporters after a talk on the bank’s goal of reducing extreme poverty to 3 percent by 2030. “We just have to be ready to move and try even harder to make sure that capital is available for the kinds of infrastructure investments developing countries need,” Kim said, adding that interest rates have already risen in some developing countries.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six