CHINA
Foreign investment rises
Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China rose 5 percent year-on-year to US$40.3 billion in the first four months of this year, lifted by funds from Asian neighbors, the government said yesterday. For last month alone FDI — which excludes investment in financial sectors — was up 3.4 percent at US$8.7 billion, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement. However, that was down from US$12.24 billion in March. “Investment from major countries and regions into China maintained a stable growth momentum,” ministry spokesman Shen Danyang (沈丹陽) said in the statement. In the January-to-April period, the top five investors included Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and China’s special administrative region of Hong Kong, the ministry said. Investment from Japan plunged 46.8 percent to US$1.6 billion, it said, as a political row over disputed islands in the East China Sea, which Taiwan also claims, has made Japanese companies reluctant to pour funds into its neighbor.
PROPERTY
Deutsche Bank sells casino
Deutsche Bank AG is cutting itself free of The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas resort and casino, saying it is selling the swanky but unprofitable high-rise complex on the Strip to Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII for US$1.73 billion. The German investment bank said in a statement on Thursday that the cash deal remains subject to regulatory approvals. The bank had intended to sell the property from before it even opened in 2010 and had placed The Cosmopolitan in a separate bank division devoted to winding down or selling unwanted investments. Blackstone, which owns US$81 billion in real-estate assets globally, is in the business of buying underperforming property and improving it for resale.
RETAIL
Wal-Mart income hit
Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s first-quarter net income fell 5 percent as bad winter weather and financial struggles kept customers from spending at the world’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart’s latest performance appears to show that many people are having a hard time stretching their money between paychecks. The company’s shares fell nearly 2 percent as Wal-Mart reported results that missed Wall Street’s expectations for the third time in five quarters and gave a weak second-quarter earnings forecast. For the period ended April 30, the Bentonville, Arkansas, company earned US$3.59 billion, or US$1.11 per share. That compares with US$3.78 billion, or US$1.14 per share, a year ago. Wal-Mart said that bad weather hurt earnings by about US$0.03 per share. Its performance was also dinged by a higher-than-expected tax rate. Income from continuing operations was US$1.10 per share. Analysts, on average, expected earnings of US$1.15 per share, according to a FactSet survey.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Applied Materials eyes Q3
Applied Materials Inc gave a forecast for fiscal third-quarter sales that topped the low end of analysts’ estimates as it takes market share and demand for display-making machinery rebounds. Revenue in the period that ends in July will be US$2.24 billion to US$2.35 billion, based on the company’s prediction for sales to be down 5 percent to flat from the prior quarter. Analysts were estimating US$2.16 billion to US$2.46 billion and an average of US$2.32 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Profit before certain items will be US$0.25 to US$0.29 a share, the company said in a statement on Thursday, compared with an average projection of US$0.27.
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
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],”