SERVICES
Chinese PMI rises to 53.5%
Activity in China’s services sector accelerated last month, the HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) showed yesterday, as new business rose at the fastest pace in three years. The headline PMI for last month was 53.5, up from 52.9 in April and well above the 50-point level that separates expansion from contraction. Last month was the fourth straight month of acceleration. The services sector has accounted for the bigger part of China’s economic output for at least two years, with its share rising to 48.2 percent last year, compared with the 42.6 percent contribution from manufacturing and construction.
ELECTRONICS
Fitbit predicts IPO funds
Fitbit Inc on Tuesday told US regulators that it might raise more than US$500 million when it makes its New York Stock Exchange debut, but remained silent as to when that would happen. The San Francisco-based company — known for wearable devices designed to promote healthy lifestyles by tracking activity — raised the high end of its target to US$549 million for the initial public offering (IPO), indicating in a filing that shares would be priced between US$14 and US$16 each. Based on the proposed share pricing, Fitbit would have a market value in the range of US$2.9 billion to US$3.3 billion given the number of shares it expects to sell.
JAPAN
Bankruptcies tipped to rise
Corporate bankruptcies linked to the yen’s slide might accelerate a few months from now, reflecting the latest rapid drop in the currency, Teikoku Databank Ltd researcher Osamu Naito said. While overall corporate bankruptcies decreased in the fiscal year through March, there has been an increase in company failures linked to the yen’s depreciation. It might accelerate from about August through the end of the year and has the potential to “trigger” an increase in the overall number of bankruptcies, Naito said. “Further weakness in the yen could become a matter of life and death for many small and medium-sized companies,” he said. There is typically a lag of three months to six months from the time a currency changes to the impact being felt in bankruptcies, Naito added.
SHIPPING
Maersk to buy vessels
Danish shipping giant A.P. Moeller-Maersk on Tuesday said that it had agreed to buy 11 “mega” container ships for US$1.8 billion with the option to acquire another six from South Korea’s Daewoo. Maersk Line, the world’s largest container transporter, said these vessels will help it stay competitive in the Asia-Europe trade and key in its strategy to grow with the market. The mega ships are 400m long and 58.6m wide and will each be capable of carrying more than 19,000 containers, it said.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook opens Paris lab
Facebook Inc on Tuesday announced the opening of a new “artificial intelligence” lab in Paris to expand a push to make its online social network more profitable. The facility — the third after two it operates in the US — has six researchers at work and will more than double that number by the end of the year, executives from the US-based company said. The recruits are to come from France’s top public and private technological institutions.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the