GAMBLING
Macau casino revenue falls
Macau casino revenue fell to the lowest in more than four years amid China’s slowing economy and a graft crackdown that deterred high-rollers. A surprise easing of Chinese travel restrictions to the territory might bring some relief. Gross gaming revenue last month fell 36.2 percent to 17.4 billion patacas (US$2.2 billion), according to data released by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. The decline last month has eased for a fourth straight month since February, when gaming revenue plunged 48.6 percent for the worst monthly drop on record. The year-to-date drop is 37 percent.
ENTERTAINMENT
Cirque du Soleil to be sold
Canada on Tuesday approved the sale of the government-owned Cirque du Soleil to a US investment fund and its Chinese partners, according to officials. US private equity firm TPG and China’s Fosun International Ltd (復星國際) bought the Quebec circus juggernaut for an undisclosed sum in April as the carnival looks to expand in Asia. Canadian Minister of Industry James Moore said the sale would benefit the nation economically, adding that Canadians would remain in key positions within the company.
INTERNET
Google wins YouTube battle
Google Inc on Tuesday won a legal victory over German performing rights organization Gema, which had sought to make the company’s video-sharing service YouTube pay each time users watched music videos by artists it represents. A Munich court rejected Gema’s demand that YouTube pay 0.37 euros per view of certain videos. In its claim, Gema had picked out a sample of 1,000 videos, which it said would cost YouTube about 1.6 million euros. The Munich court ruling, which has not yet been published in full, might still be appealed by Gema.
TRANSPORTATION
Asciano given takeover offer
Australian ports and rail operator Asciano Ltd yesterday said it had received an A$8.8 billion (US$6.8 billion) takeover offer from Canada-based Brookfield Infrastructure Group and was considering the proposal. Asciano said the cash and stock offer valued its shares at A$9.05. The proposal, subject to Brookfield’s due diligence, would be by scheme of arrangement, meaning only 50 percent of shareholders must support the deal for it to go ahead. It would also need the approval of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and the Foreign Investment Review Board.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai’s sales decline
Hyundai Motor Co’s sales fell for a third straight month, dragged down by a slump in overseas deliveries as unfavorable currency-exchange rates undermine its ability to compete against Japanese automakers. Deliveries fell 1.2 percent to 408,026 vehicles last month from a year earlier, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. Overseas sales declined 2.2 percent to 345,224 units, while deliveries at home climbed 4.8 percent.
ECONOMY
Inflation rises in Indonesia
Inflation rose in Indonesia last month as tens of millions of Muslims observing the Islamic holy month spent extra cash on food, government data showed yesterday. The consumer price index rose 7.26 percent year-on-year, the government’s statistics agency said. Inflation in May was 7.15 percent. Despite inflation being higher than the previous month, last month’s figure was lower than that forecast by economists.
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],”
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
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