AUTOMAKERS
Volkswagen global sales fall
Volkswagen AG on Tuesday said that global sales slipped 3.7 percent last month amid turmoil in key markets. The company delivered 792,100 vehicles last month, bringing this year’s total to 5.83 million, 1 percent less than it sold in the same period a year earlier. In China, Volkswagen’s biggest market, sales for the first seven months of the year declined about 5 percent to 1.99 million vehicles. The company’s brands include Audi, Porsche and Skoda.
MARKETING
WPP PLC show strong sales
WPP PLC, the world’s largest advertising company, yesterday said first-half sales increased 6.8 percent as business from existing clients picked up in North America. Sales rose to £5.84 billion (US$9.16 billion). Profit, before interest and tax rose, 7.6 percent to £669 million, the London-based company said in a statement. The owner of ad agencies, including Young & Rubicam and Ogilvy & Mather, said revenue last month rose 5 percent on a like-for-like basis, indicating a stronger third quarter.
TRAVEL
Airbnb to charge Paris tax
The home-sharing company Airbnb has agreed to incorporate a small tourist tax on rental apartments in Paris — following a request by Paris authorities. In a statement on Tuesday, Airbnb said it would collect 0.83 euros (US$0.95) per person per day to be paid by lodgers from Oct. 1. Paris’ City Hall said that it is a move to bring Airbnb more in line with city hotels, who already pay the tax and are bearing the brunt of increased competition.
AIRLINES
Air New Zealand profit rise
New Zealand’s national airline yesterday posted a 24 percent jump in annual profit after benefiting from lower fuel costs and continuing its expansion in Asia and North America. Air New Zealand announced after-tax profits of NZ$327 million (US$212 million) for the year to the end of June. Revenue was up 6 percent to NZ$4.9 billion. The company said domestic passenger numbers were up 3.4 percent and long-haul international numbers up 9.3 percent.
INTERNET
Online gaming merger
Online gambling company Betfair and Irish rival Paddy Power yesterday said they had reached an agreement in principle on a possible merger, marking the latest in a string of possible tie-ups across the sector. The two firms said discussions were ongoing regarding some terms of a merger that would create one of the world’s largest online betting and gaming groups with revenues of more than £1.1 billion (US$1.72 billion). Under the terms, Paddy Power shareholders would own 52 percent of the group with Betfair shareholders owning the rest.
ECONOMY
Pakistan’s tax crisis a reality
Despite recent optimism surrounding Pakistan’s economy, the country is facing an “existential crisis” stemming from its woeful tax collection rates and inability to finance itself, a report said yesterday. Pakistan’s economy grew at 4.24 percent during the last fiscal year with per capita income rising a significant 9.25 percent, markers that come as investor confidence in the long-underperfoming South Asian giant have also increased. The country’s tax-to-GDP ratio of 9.4 percent is among the lowest in the world, leading to a public debt of 17 trillion rupees (US$171 billion).
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained