CHINA
Property market risks seen
There are downside risks for the property market in the second quarter because of the tightening measures that have been reintroduced to some cities, a government researcher said. The curbs in first-tier cities are limiting property sales’ growth, Zhang Changcai (張昌彩), deputy director general at the Information Research Department of the State Council, said at a conference in Beijing on Saturday. The second quarter will be a challenging period for developers because of the tightening in Shanghai and Shenzhen, as well as declining sales in second-tier markets, industry consultant E-House (China) Holdings Ltd (易居中國控股) co-president Ding Zuyu (丁祖昱) said in Shanghai on Friday.
INTERNET
Yahoo extends bid deadline
Yahoo Inc has given prospective buyers an added week to make preliminary bids for the company’s core assets, tech news Web site Re/Code reported on Friday. The struggling Internet pioneer has been briefing prospective buyers, according to US media reports that indicated the list of suitors included telecommunications titan Verizon Communications Inc, Google-parent Alphabet Inc and Time Inc. The deadline for initial offers was reportedly extended from today to Monday next week, a day before California-based Yahoo releases earnings figures for the first three months of this year. Re/Code attributed the information to unnamed sources close to the situation and “blabby bankers they talk to.”
INTERNET
Court setback for Google
A US appeals court has ruled that Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood can resume an investigation of Google. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a district judge who had sided with Google. The district judge originally ruled that the unit of Alphabet Inc did not have to answer a subpoena by Hood. The appeals court is also dissolving an injunction issued by the judge that had barred Hood from bringing any lawsuits against the California-based company.
AUTOMAKERS
Renault, Morocco ink deal
French carmaker Renault SA has signed agreements with Morocco to invest more than US$1 billion and create 50,000 jobs in the North African country, Moroccan Minister of Industry, Trade, & New Technologies Moulay Hafid Elalamy said, after the deal was signed on Friday in the presence of King Mohamed VI. Renault said it is optimistic about the deal. The Africa-Middle East-India region is Renault’s top market worldwide outside Europe, with sales there increasing by 16.9 percent last year, according to figures published in January. Sales went up by 11.5 percent in Morocco and by 8.7 percent in Algeria.
OIL
Ecuador urges stabilization
Oil-producing countries must take the necessary steps to stabilize the global crude market in a bid to improve prices, Ecuadorean Minister of Foreign Affairs Guillaume Long said on behalf of Latin American nations after a gathering in Quito. Waiting for the market to balance itself would be “catastrophic,” Ecuadorean Minister of Hydrocarbons Carlos Pareja said before the meeting on Friday. Ecuador, OPEC’s smallest member, hosted the talks ahead of a summit of producers in Doha, Qatar, this coming Sunday. Venezuelan Minister of Petroleum Eulogio Del Pino, one of the most vocal advocates of a freeze, reiterated in Quito his call for OPEC and non-OPEC nations to seek an oil price “balance.”
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