AUTOMAKERS
Toyota mulls deal: report
Toyota Motor Corp is close to a deal to pay US$1 billion to settle a US criminal investigation into how it disclosed customers’ complaints about unintended acceleration years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing anonymous sources. Toyota could reach a deal with authorities within weeks, the Journal quoted the sources as saying, ending a four-year probe into the Japanese automaker. The deal under negotiation could still collapse or the settlement amount could change, the sources were cited as saying. Prosecutors in the Manhattan US attorney’s office are investigating whether Toyota made false or incomplete disclosures to US regulators about possible car defects, the Journal cited people familiar with the matter as saying.
FINANCE
Google tops Exxon’s value
Google Inc briefly surpassed Exxon Mobil Corp as the second-most valuable company, trailing only Apple Inc and underscoring the growing role of technology in the economy. Google, which became the world’s largest online advertiser through its dominant search engine, had a higher market capitalization during intraday trading on Friday before falling back at the close in New York to a value of US$395.4 billion compared with Exxon’s US$395.7 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Apple had a market value of US$463.5 billion. Software company Microsoft Corp is No. 4 with US$303.5 billion. Technology companies are establishing themselves as key players worldwide as they disrupt industries from retail to finance.
LENDING
US consumer borrowing up
US consumers boosted their borrowing in December by the largest amount in 10 months as demand for auto, student and credit card loans showed big gains. Consumer borrowing rose US$18.8 billion in December, the biggest increase since February last year, the US Federal Reserve reported on Friday. The category that includes auto and student loans increased the most, rising US$13.8 billion. Credit card debt, which has been lagging, rose by US$5 billion. That was the largest jump since May. The big increase pushed total borrowing to a fresh record of US$3.1 trillion. Gains in borrowing are viewed as an encouraging sign that consumers are more confident and willing to take on more debt to finance consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.
ECONOMY
India expects 5% growth
India forecast a faster acceleration in economic growth than analysts had estimated, a prediction facing risks from interest-rate increases to quell inflation and expenditure curbs by the Indian government. India’s GDP will rise 4.9 percent in the 12 months through March 31, compared with the decade-low 4.5 percent in the previous fiscal year, India’s Statistics Ministry said in New Delhi on Friday. The projection may be revised upward later and the final growth rate is unlikely to be less than 5 percent, Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said in a statement e-mailed yesterday. The rupee, down about 15 percent versus the US dollar in the past year, strengthened 0.2 percent to 62.29 per US dollar in Mumbai on Friday, before the data’s release.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by