INFLATION
China inflation rises to 1.5%
China’s consumer inflation rebounded marginally to 1.5 percent year-on-year last month, the government said yesterday, as slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy keeps a lid on prices. The rise in the consumer price index released by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics marked an increase from a five-year low of 1.4 percent in November of last year. For the entirety of last year, consumer inflation was 2 percent, down from 2.6 percent in 2013 and well below the government’s target of about 3.5 percent.
AUTOMAKERS
Brazil car output falls 15.3%
Car production slumped 15.3 percent in Brazil last year, in the sector’s worst showing in five years, leading to 12,400 job losses, national automobile association Anfavea said on Thursday. Brazil produced 3.15 million vehicles last year, down 560,000 from 2013 for the lowest tally since 2009, Anfavea chairman Luiz Moan Yabiku said. Sales slid last year, down 7.5 percent to 3.5 million units, after a fourth straight year of pallid economic growth, Brazil’s auto dealership association Fenabrave announced on Tuesday.
INTERNET
Google search share dips
Google Inc saw its share of the US Internet search market slip to its lowest ever mark, while Yahoo Inc notched its highest share in five years, an independent analytics firm said on Thursday. Last month, Google handled 75.2 percent of US online search referrals, down from 79.3 percent a year earlier. However, the company remains the leader in the US search market by a wide margin, ahead of Microsoft Corp’s Bing at 12.5 percent and Yahoo at 10.4 percent. Firefox, which is open-source and free, was reported by industry trackers to be the third-most used Web browser in the world, behind Google’s Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
RETAIL
Macy’s cutting 1,300 jobs
US department store giant Macy’s said on Thursday it would shut 14 stores, cutting more than 1,300 jobs, in a restructuring to boost its focus on the boom in online shopping. The affected stores, a small fraction of the company’s roughly 790 stores across the country, will be closed within several months, Macy’s said in a statement after the markets closed. Macy’s also announced it would open two new stores in California.
SHIPPING
Giant ship to enter service
One of the world’s largest ships, capable of lifting oil rigs five times heavier than the Eiffel Tower, arrived in Rotterdam on Thursday for finishing touches before entering service. The nearly 400m long Pieter Schelte Heerema was built by Daewoo and will have floating housing units installed around it in Rotterdam so workers can complete the construction job. Once the work and sea tests are completed, the ship’s first task will be removing the Yme oil platform off the Norwegian coast.
AIRCRAFT
Boeing hits new sales high
Boeing Co on Tuesday reported that last year was a banner year for aircraft sales, breaking records for new orders and deliveries. The company said it booked 1,432 net orders for commercial aircraft last year, with a list price value of US$232.7 billion, topping its 2007 previous record. The company’s backlog of unfilled orders climbed to 5,789, also an all-time high.
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
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San