BEVERAGES
Pepsi CEO’s bonus raised
PepsiCo chief executive Indra Nooyi got a pay package of US$13.2 million last year, representing a 5 percent increase from the previous year. The pay bump for the Indian-born Nooyi was the result of a higher performance-based bonus, reflecting the company’s improved financial results after coming out of a “transitional year” in which it slashed costs and stepped up investments in flagship brands. PepsiCo Inc, based in Purchase, New York, had been under pressure to improve its results when Nooyi announced a “reset” in 2012 to strengthen its brands. The company made a point of investing more heavily in marketing for its Pepsi soda, which had lost market share to Coca-Cola Co over the years.
FAST FOOD
Wendy’s plans phone-pay
Wendy’s is rolling out a program that lets customers pay using their smartphones, following a similar plan unveiled by Burger King this week. The Wendy’s Co, based in Dublin, Ohio, has been testing the mobile payment option over the past year and said the majority of its about 5,800 US locations are now ready to accept the payments. The move reflects a push by fast-food chains to court younger customers by tapping into the attachment they have to their smartphones. Burger King Worldwide Inc also said this week it would introduce a mobile payment program at its US restaurants next month. Meanwhile, McDonald’s Corp has acknowledged the importance of mobile payments, but is still in a testing phase after hiring its first chief digital officer in October last year. In the meantime, Starbucks Corp is pushing to get more customers to sign up for its app and loyalty program and says 14 percent of all purchases now come from mobile payments.
RETAIL
Tesco in India venture
Britain’s Tesco on Friday said it had struck a joint venture deal with India’s Tata Group to become the first foreign supermarket to enter the country’s US$500 billion retail sector. The world’s third-biggest retailer made the announcement after winning clearance from the Indian Foreign Investment Promotion Board for a US$140 million investment in the alliance with Tata Group unit Trent Ltd. Tesco said in a statement it had “entered into an agreement with Trent Limited, part of the Tata Group, to form a 50:50 Joint Venture in Trent Hypermarket Limited (THL) which operates the Star Bazaar retail business in India.” It said final clearances were still necessary. If approved, the deal will make Tesco the first retail giant to debut in the massive Indian retail market since New Delhi removed foreign investment barriers in 2012. On completion of the deal, THL will operate 12 stores.
GREEN GOODS
US plans negotiations
The US on Friday said it was planning to begin negotiations with other leading trading countries for a deal to cut tariffs for green goods like solar panels. The office of the US Trade Representative said it had officially notified the US Congress of the plan to open talks for a new pact on environmental goods under the WTO. “By eliminating tariffs on the environmental technologies we need to keep our air and water clean, for example, we can make them cheaper and more accessible to everyone,” US Trade Representative Michael Froman said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day