CONGLOMERATES
Samsung taps Lee daughter
The second daughter of Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee has been made a president at the firm’s de facto holding company, cementing his family’s hold on the South Korean giant. Lee Seo-hyun will lead management planning at the Everland’s fashion business, Samsung said in a statement yesterday. The 40-year-old was previously vice president of Cheil Industries, which was the former fashion unit before it handed over operations to Everland. Her older sister — Lee Boo-jin — has been a president at Everland since 2010, overseeing business strategy, while their only brother, Lee Jae-yong, was made vice chairman of Samsung Electronics last year. Lee Kun-hee is chairman of the group’s flagship unit Samsung Electronics and de facto leader of the entire business empire.
SOUTH KOREA
Inflation within target
South Korea’s inflation rose slightly last month, but stayed well below the central bank’s inflation target, state data showed yesterday. The consumer price index rose 0.9 percent year-on-year last month, up from a 0.7 percent gain in October, Statistics Korea said. The latest reading — well below the Bank of Korea’s target range of 2.5 to 3.5 percent — also marked the third straight month that the country’s inflation remained below 1 percent. Core inflation — which excludes volatile oil and food prices — rose 1.8 percent from a year ago, up from October’s 1.6 percent gain.
ELECTRICITY
Malaysia okays power hike
Malaysia will allow national power distributor Tenaga Nasional Bhd to raise electricity charges for the first time in more than two years, adding to business and living costs as the government cuts state subsidies. Tenaga will increase prices by an average of about 15 percent in Peninsular Malaysia to 38.53 sen (US$0.12) per kilowatt hour from Jan. 1, Malaysian Minister of Energy, Green Technology and Water Maximus Johnity Ongkili told reports in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. Tariffs will rise by an average 16.9 percent to 34.52 sen/kWh in the eastern state of Sabah, he said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Thalidomide suit settled
A class action suit by Australian and New Zealand victims of Thalidomide against the anti-morning sickness drug’s British distributor Diageo Scotland Ltd has been settled for A$89 million (US$81 million), a lawyer said yesterday. The victims’ lawyer, Peter Gordon, told the Victoria state Supreme Court that the settlement, which is subject to court approval, brought to an end a long battle for compensation. A suit against the drug’s German manufacturer, Grunenthal Group, will be discontinued. More than 100 Thalidomide victims in Australia and New Zealand will receive compensation once the settlement has been ratified by the court in February, Gordon said.
GAMING
Cantor ventures into China
Cantor Gaming is the latest Las Vegas-based gambling company to move into the Chinese market. The sports betting and mobile gambling company announced this week that it would help operate a lottery club in Tianjin, along with partners Global Entertainment Investment & Management Co and the Tianjin Welfare Lottery club. Cantor will provide infrastructure and technological know-how, and will allow the club to offer wireless wagering, as opposed to paper-based betting. Cantor is advertising the new 7,400m2 club as a stylish place with mahjong parlors, private dining rooms and lounges, as well as lottery games.
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
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
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