GERMANY
Jobless rate remains low
Unemployment remained at historically low levels of 6.4 percent last month as the recovery in Europe’s biggest economy remained on track, data showed yesterday. The number of people registered as unemployed fell by a seasonally adjusted 1,000 to 2.786 million, the lowest level since December 1991, the Federal Labor Office said. That was slightly fewer than expected, as analysts had been penciling in a decline of about 5,000.
ELECTRONICS
Sony shares plunge
Shares in Sony Corp plunged 8.25 percent on Tuesday on dilution fears after the Japanese electronics giant announced plans to raise a total of ¥441 billion (US$3.6 billion) — more than 10 percent of the company’s market capitalization as of yesterday — through stock and bond sales. It is the first new share issuance in 26 years, the company said. The stock closed at ¥3,461.5 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, down 8.25 percent from the previous day.
ELECTRONICS
Sharp in ‘selective default’
Troubled Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp is in “selective default,” ratings agency S&P said yesterday, the latest blow to the one-time giant as it struggles to repair a tattered balance sheet. The move comes after Sharp announced that it was issuing preferred securities to its main lenders, instead of repaying loans that were due. However, the classification was expected to be only temporary, S&P said.
PETROLEUM
Petrobras to cut investment
Brazil’s state oil giant Petrobras on Monday slashed its five-year investment plan by US$77 billion — 37 percent — as it tries to recover from a massive corruption scandal. A new, leaner business plan presented by the company was also seen as reflecting today’s lower crude oil prices and other factors that are bad news for Petrobras. The cuts to the 2015-2019 plan are to reduce Petrobras’ investment spending over the period to US$130.3 billion, the company said. Most investment — 86 percent — through 2019 is to go toward exploration and production of oil. The company, mired in debt, plans business restructuring and assets sales to the tune of US$42.6 billion in 2017-2018.
TELECOMS
Colt to exit IT services
Telecoms provider Colt Group SA said it would exit its IT services business to focus on its core network, and voice and data-center services divisions. The company, whose largest shareholder recently offered to take it private, said it would exit the business over the next two to three years, bearing exceptional cash costs of 45 million euros to 55 million euros (US$50.2 million to US$61.3 million) and a non-cash impairment charge of about 90 million euros. Colt said it was targeting revenue this year of between 1.50 billion euros and 1.52 billion from its core business.
EUROPEAN UNION
Google given extension
Brussels has given Google Inc an extension until Aug. 17 to answer an antitrust case alleging that the tech giant abuses its search engine’s market dominance, a company spokesman said on Monday. The announcement of charges followed a five-year investigation into whether Google’s preferential use of its own shopping product in its search engine could be harmful to consumers and competitors. Google accounts for 90 percent of the online search market in Europe.
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