JAPAN
Trade deficit edges up
The trade deficit edged higher in last month, though exports rose more than expected as the yen weakened to a near six-year low, the Ministry of Finance said in Tokyo yesterday. Exports jumped 6.9 percent from a year earlier last month to ¥6.38 trillion (US$59.6 billion), while imports rose 6.2 percent to ¥7.34 trillion. That left a deficit of ¥958.3 billion, compared with a shortfall of ¥943.2 billion a year earlier.
AUSTRALIA
Consumer prices rise
Consumer prices rose 0.5 percent in the third quarter, official figures showed yesterday, as the annual rate of inflation eased following the removal of a controversial carbon tax. The increase in the consumer price index in the quarter was slightly higher than economists’ estimates of 0.4 percent. The new figures took the annual rate of inflation to 2.3 percent, the Bureau of Statistics said, down from 3 percent in the year to June.
ENTERTAINMENT
Google to play mood music
Google Inc is adding mood music to the mix as it tries to lure listeners away from Pandora, Spotify and other popular services that play tunes over the Internet. The feature is being released on Tuesday in an update to Google Play’s music subscription service, All Access, which costs US$10 per month. The mood-adjustment tool is to initially be offered only in the US and Canada. All Access is sold in more than 40 other countries. Google picked up the mood-melding technology in its July acquisition of a free music service called Songza.
PUBLISHING
German firm buys e-learner
German media company Bertelsmann said on Tuesday that it would buy online education provider Relias Learning, its biggest US acquisition since taking over Random House in 1998. It did not name a price for the e-learning company, but said it would pay about US$500 million to private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. Relias Learning offers about 2,500 professional online training courses booked 20 million times a year in fields such as healthcare and care for elderly and disabled people. Bertelsmann owns publishers Gruner & Jahr and RTL television.
INTERNET
Yahoo’s profit surges
Yahoo said on Tuesday its quarterly profit surged with its sale of shares in Chinese Internet powerhouse Alibaba (阿里巴巴), and also saw improving results from its mobile Internet initiatives. Net profit jumped to US$6.8 billion, which included US$6.3 billion from its Alibaba shares. However, profits excluding one-time items were stronger than expected, and pumped up Yahoo shares by 2.7 percent in after-hours trade. Revenue from operations inched up 1 percent to US$1.15 billion, according to third quarter results.
BREWERIES
Dutch firm’s earnings slump
Heineken NV said yesterday that poor weather and weak economies in Europe dragged its third-quarter earnings lower, though sales in developing markets grew a lot. The Dutch brewer reported net profit of 460 million euros (US$585 million), from 483 million euros in the same quarter last year. Sales fell 1.5 percent to 5.1 billion euros. Chief executive Jean-Francois van Boxmeer said that had it not been for a business the company sold and currency effects, sales would have grown 0.2 percent.
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],”