SMARTPHONES
Google to close factory
Google Inc’s Motorola Mobility handset unit said it will close its Texas factory by the end of this year, barely a year after it opened as the first smartphone factory in the US. Sales of its flagship phone, the Moto X, have been weak, and the costs of running the plant are too high to keep operations going, Motorola Mobility spokesman Will Moss said. Singapore-based international contract electronics manufacturer Flextronics Ltd operates the plant. The Texas factory has allowed Google to stamp the phone with “Made in the US,” although assembly is just the last step in the manufacturing process and accounts for relatively little of the cost of a smartphone. The cost largely lies in the chips, battery and display, most of which come from Asian factories. The factory employs about 700 workers, who assemble the Moto X smartphones for the US market, Moss said.
COMPUTERS
Apple boss to get US$1m
Apple Inc’s new chief financial officer, Luca Maestri, is the million-dollar man. Maestri, who took the position on Thursday, will receive an annual salary of US$1 million, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. He was also awarded 6,337 restricted stock units that will vest through 2018 and are worth US$4 million based on Apple’s closing price of US$633. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, had said in March that Peter Oppenheimer would step down and be succeeded by Maestri. The change is part of several executive shifts at the world’s most valuable company, which also recently brought on board former Burberry Group PLC CEO Angela Ahrendts to run retail.
FINANCE
IMF grants Greece aid
The IMF released US$4.6 billion in aid to Greece on Friday, after a year-long delay to ensure Athens was meeting targets set by bailout lenders. The IMF said the Greek government had surpassed targets on closing its budget gap, but warned of a number of challenges still facing the country in fully stabilizing its finances and returning to sustainable growth. The disbursement followed the release at the end of April by the Eurogroup of 6.3 billion euros (US$8.6 billion) in rescue program support to Greece, in a firm nod to its progress in cleaning up its finances and narrowing its budget deficit. The IMF funds are part of a four-year joint package worth a total of US$235 billion to rescue the sinking Greek economy.
BANKING
Los Angeles seeks damages
Los Angeles filed suit on Friday against JPMorgan Chase, saying that the US bank pushed minorities into higher-risk loans that they could not afford, helping trigger the foreclosure crisis. The city is trying to recover damages for decreased tax revenues, arguing that the rash of foreclosures caused property values to drop, and for the extra money it spent on city services because of the foreclosures. “LA continues to suffer from the foreclosure crisis — from blight in our neighborhoods to diminished revenue for basic city services,” Los Angeles attorney Mike Feuer said in a statement. “We’re fighting to hold those we allege are responsible to account.” The “mortgage discrimination,” in effect since 2004, imposed “different terms or conditions on a discriminatory and legally prohibited basis,” according to the lawsuit filed in federal court.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts