AUTOPARTS
Ningbo to buy KSS
China’s Ningbo Joyson Electronic Corp (寧波均勝電子) yesterday said it has signed an agreement to buy US-based Key Safety Systems Holdings Inc (KSS) for US$920 million, according to a statement submitted to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, where it is listed. Ningbo, which provides driver control systems to auto giants such as General Motors Co and Mercedes-Benz, said it also plans to buy the car navigation business of Germany’s TechniSat Digital GmbH for US$204.6 million, the statement added. The deals are still pending regulatory approval.
ELECTRONICS
Qi ups Bang & Olufsen stake
A Chinese billionaire in talks to buy Bang & Olufsen, the Danish maker of upmarket consumer electronics, on Thursday raised his stake in the company, making him its largest single shareholder. Qi Jianhong (綦建虹) bought a 13.1 percent stake in the group, taking his total holding to 18.7 percent when combined with the stake of another company he controls. Last month, the Danish company entered an agreement to outsource the production of its television screens to LG Electronics Co.
BOOK RETAIL
Nook reader outsourced
Barnes & Noble Inc is bringing in help to manage its struggling Nook reader in a cost-cutting move that is to lay off 99 workers. The changes announced on Thursday include turning over responsibility for some of the Nook’s technology to a contractor, Bahwan CyberTek. The hand-off is to allow Barnes & Noble to close offices in Taiwan and Santa Clara, California. That is to result in 80 workers losing their jobs in Silicon Valley and another 19 in Taiwan. The New York-based firm expects to save about US$13 million annually.
ECONOMY
Japan posts surplus
The nation posted a 20th consecutive current-account surplus, helping an economy that is still struggling to rebound from a contraction in the final quarter of last year. The excess in the widest measure of the nation’s trade was ¥2.43 trillion (US$22.4 billion) in February, the biggest surplus since March last year, the Ministry of Finance reported yesterday. A combination of cheap energy imports, higher income from investments abroad and an influx of foreign tourists contributed to the surplus, the ministry said.
AUTOMAKERS
India deliveries rise 7.2%
Passenger vehicle deliveries in India expanded at their fastest pace in five years as new model introductions by Suzuki Motor Corp, Hyundai Motor Co and Renault SA offset a ban on the sale of large diesel vehicles in the nation’s capital, New Delhi. Deliveries of cars, sport utility vehicles and vans in the year through March climbed 7.2 percent to 2.79 million units, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers said yesterday. Sales climbed 3.9 percent in the year-earlier period.
STOCK MARKET
Aviva Investors France fined
France’s financial market regulator on Thursday slapped a 950,000 euro (US$1.1 million) fine on Aviva Investors France. The regulator found that the company had failed to respect a rule that requires identifying which portfolio a share is to be placed in before a sales order is placed. The regulator had also found shortcomings in its record-keeping of trades and internal controls. Aviva Investors France indicated it would not appeal the ruling.
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