TRADE
China’s crude imports drop
China’s crude imports fell last month to the lowest in five months as slowing economic growth curtailed demand and storage tanks filled. Overseas purchases fell to 26.35 million tonnes last month from 27.95 million in September, according to preliminary data released by the Beijing-based General Administration of Customs yesterday. That is equivalent to about 6.23 million barrels a day, down 8.8 percent from the previous month and the least since May, Bloomberg calculations show. Oil imports from January through last month rose 8.9 percent to 275 million tonnes, compared with the same period a year earlier, the customs data showed.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda recalls 25,000 cars
Honda Motor Co is recalling more than 25,000 cars in the US to replace the rear grab rail brackets, which it says could interfere with the deployment of a side curtain air bag. The carmaker says no such instances have been reported and that it discovered the faulty design during internal testing. The recall affects 25,367 of the Fit LX vehicles.
PHONE MAKERS
Employees’ lawsuit rejected
Apple Inc persuaded a judge to throw out a lawsuit by employees of the company’s retail stores in California seeking back pay for time spent in “demoralizing” security searches when they left work for the day. The ruling by a San Francisco federal judge on Saturday releases the company from having to compensate as many 12,400 former and current employees from 52 stores throughout the state a few dollars a day for time spent over a six-year period having their bags and Apple devices searched at meal breaks and after their shifts.
AUTOMAKERS
VW managers ‘worried’
Volkswagen managers are worried about travelling to the US, a German newspaper reported on Saturday, saying US investigators have confiscated the passport of an employee who is there on a visit. Citing company sources, the Suddeutsche Zeitung said Volkswagen believes the investigators want to prevent the manager from evading questioning or criminal prosecution linked to the diesel emissions scandal. A spokesman for VW said: “Volkswagen employees are still travelling to the United States. Everything else is speculation.”
AVIATION
Jet deliveries rise 4.3%
Business jet deliveries rose 4.3 percent during the first nine months of this year as the US, the biggest market for mid-sized aircraft, logged slow-but-steady growth. Manufacturers, including General Dynamics Corp’s Gulfstream, Textron Inc’s Cessna and Embraer SA, shipped 465 jet planes in the period, according to the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Mid-sized jets including Cessna’s Citation XLS+ and Embraer’s Phenom 300 led the increase with a 12 percent gain to 255 deliveries.
AUTOMAKERS
Workers reject GM deal
General Motors Co’s (GM) tentative agreement with the United Auto Workers was rejected on Friday by skilled-trades workers, preventing ratification of a contract that would have delivered more than US$2 billion in improved wages and benefits over the deal’s four-year term. The UAW said it will hold meetings at each worksite over the next several days to determine why the skilled-trades workers voted no by almost a 3-2 ratio. The union reached a tentative contract agreement with Ford Motor Corp on Friday.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San