CHINA
Lending declines sharply
Bank lending declined sharply last month to 597.8 billion yuan (US$91.1 billion) from November’s 708.9 billion yuan, the central bank said yesterday. “The lower-than-expected new loans suggest that credit demand remained weak,” ANZ Banking Group said in a research note, adding that commercial banks were reluctant to lend given increasing risk. Total social financing — the broadest measure of credit in the economy — was 1.82 trillion yuan last month, the central bank said, higher than 1.02 trillion yuan in November and above the median forecast of 1.15 trillion yuan according to a Bloomberg News survey.
UNITED STATES
Economy rosy: JPMorgan
JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive Jamie Dimon said on Thursday the economy looks “pretty good” and growth, though slowing, would not end up in recession. “We’re not forecasting a recession,” Dimon said in a conference call with analysts after the bank reported fourth-quarter earnings that topped expectations. He cited economic growth of about 2 to 2.5 percent in the past two years, coupled with the creation of 5 million jobs.
BEVERAGES
Merger tough: Suntory head
The head of Japanese whisky maker Suntory says merging Japanese and US work cultures remains a major challenge in his company’s acquisition of the maker of Jim Beam bourbon. Suntory Holdings Ltd president Takeshi Niinami said yesterday that integration is not easy because of differing career aspirations and compensation systems for Japanese and US employees. Suntory bought the former Beam Inc in 2014. Niinami said his goal is to create a global workforce that shares ideas freely.
RETAIL
Carrefour meets estimates
Carrefour SA, France’s largest retailer, reported fourth-quarter revenue that met analysts’ estimates, boosted by Spain and Italy, achieving a fourth year of annual growth. Revenue rose 2.4 percent on an organic basis to 22.4 billion euros (US$24 billion), Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based Carrefour said yesterday in a statement. Analysts expected 22.6 billion euros, according to the median of estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
RETAIL
Best Buy reduces outlook
Best Buy Co Inc on Thursday reduced its sales outlook for the fourth quarter. The Minneapolis-based company said it expects a larger drop in fourth-quarter revenue, though the company improved its outlook for operating income. The company’s domestic same-store sales, a key measure of a retailer’s health, fell 1.2 percent in the nine-week period ended on Jan. 2 compared with growth of 3.4 percent during the same period the previous year. Online revenue rose 12.6 percent, compared with growth of 13.4 percent the previous year.
RIDE HAILERS
Uber subsidiary fined
The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday hit a Uber subsidiary with a US$7.6 million fine for failing to comply with reporting requirements fully and in a timely manner. The commission also said that the subsidiary, Raiser-CA, was in contempt and had 30 days to pay the penalty or face suspension of its license to operate in the state. Uber on Thursday said it was disappointed with the ruling and vowed to appeal. The company maintained that it provided what information it could without risking the privacy of riders and drivers.
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
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by