AUTOMAKERS
Nissan raises profit target
Nissan yesterday said it had raised its full-year net profit forecast to US$3.5 billion, thanks to cost-cutting efforts and a cheaper yen, while booming US and European sales offset a plunge in Japan caused by a sales tax hike in April last year . The Japanese automaker said it expected to make a profit of ¥ 420 billion (US$3.5 billion) in the year to March 31, up from an earlier forecast of ¥405 billion. Nissan’s announcement came as it said net profit for the nine months to December last year rose 23.6 percent year-on-year to ¥338.8 billion. For the year to next month, the company is expecting to earn an operating profit of ¥570 billion on sales of ¥11.15 trillion, also marking increases from earlier projections for ¥535 billion and ¥10.80 trillion respectively. Solid US sales, cost-cutting programs and favorable currency movements contributed to the robust earnings, Nissan said.
GERMANY
Record surplus posted
Germany posted a record current-account surplus last year, setting the stage for renewed international calls to address its economic imbalances. The surplus rose to 215.3 billion euros (US$244 billion) last year from 189.2 billion euros in 2013, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said yesterday. That is equal to 7.4 percent of the country’s GDP and exceeds the 176.7 billion euros China recorded. The data, which come as finance chiefs of the world’s leading industrialized and emerging economies meet in Istanbul, are likely to rekindle criticism of Germany’s economic policy by institutions such as the IMF and the European Commission. At the same time, the country’s exporters are in for a further boost as large-scale asset purchases by the European Central Bank should weaken the euro, increasing competitiveness in foreign markets.
currencies
Yen may fall 20%: Goldman
The yen may decline about 20 percent in two years as Japan encourages inflation to spur economic growth, Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s head of fixed income in the Asia-Pacific region said. While aggressive monetary easing has already dragged down the currency and bolstered corporate earnings, workers’ wages adjusted for inflation fell for an 18th straight month in December. A decline in the yen to about ¥140 per US dollar over the next two years is a “reasonable expectation,” Sydney-based Philip Moffitt said in a telephone interview. The firm oversees about US$1 trillion in assets globally. “To create continued upward pressure on inflation, that would be an outcome that the central bank and government wouldn’t be unhappy with — but not if it happened overnight,” Moffitt said on Wednesday last week. The currency has declined 27 percent against the greenback since the end of 2012.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft looks to Africa
Microsoft Corp plans to start selling mobile phones and tablet computers in Africa that run on the US company’s operating systems to tap surging demand for smart handsets on the continent. Microsoft is working with technology partners based in Shenzhen, China, and plans to introduce US$75 to US$100 smartphones this year, Microsoft general manager for Africa initiatives Fernando de Sousa said in a Jan. 30 interview in Accra. He declined to give further details about the handset as the product has not been released to the public. “It will be a global launch,” he said. “Africa will lead in the consumption. Africa is growing smartphone use faster than anywhere in the world.”
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],”
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
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