TELECOMS
Vodafone expands in Zambia
Vodafone Group PLC is to expand into Zambia by offering high-speed mobile-data and Internet services through its partnership with closely held Afrimax, extending its reach into sub-Saharan Africa. The two companies will offer customers 4G data services using the Vodafone Zambia brand, Newbury, England-based Vodafone said yesterday. The deal includes the opening of Vodafone-branded stores and providing services to businesses in the southern African nation. African phone companies are broadening their Internet offering to help offset declining voice sales as consumers leapfrog fixed-line technology in favor of smartphone devices.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Stada CEO on medical leave
Stada Arzneimittel AG chief executive officer Hartmut Retzlaff is taking an immediate medical leave from the German generic-drug maker to deal with a “serious, long-term illness.” Two executive board members are to split Retzlaff’s duties, the company said in a statement on Sunday. Matthias Wiedenfels, who has led corporate development and central services since 2013, will take on the CEO title and also oversee corporate strategy, communications and corporate production. Helmut Kraft, who handles finance for the company, will assume research and development, marketing and sales, and supply chain responsibilities.
GERMANY
April factory orders fell 2%
Factory orders dropped sharply in April, adding to worries about stagnation in the industry. The Federal Statistical Office yesterday said that new orders in manufacturing decreased 2 percent in April from March. It also revised up March’s figure to an increase of 2.6 percent over February, instead of 1.9 percent. April’s decrease was caused by a 4.3 percent drop in foreign orders, primarily from outside the eurozone, while domestic orders increased 1.3 percent. Orders from outside the eurozone decreased 8.3 percent compared with the previous month.
EQUITIES
Middle East, Africa deals dip
The value of private equity deals in the Middle East and North Africa fell 4 percent last year as economic growth slowed because of falling oil prices. Investment dropped to US$1.5 billion, although the number of private equity deals in the region surged to 175 from 72 in the previous year, the MENA Private Equity Association said in a report on Sunday. Fundraising in the year declined 19 percent to US$992 million, with cumulative assets under management totaling US$26.5 billion. A 50 percent plunge in oil prices over the past two years is hurting economic growth across the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which is home to about 30 percent of the world’s oil reserves, and slowed dealmaking.
ELECTRONICS
GE Ventures backs Sonnen
German battery maker Sonnen GmbH yesterday said it had secured financial backing from GE Ventures, General Electric’s venture capital subsidiary, to develop its brand of residential power storage systems. Sonnen, formerly called Sonnenbatterie, is a start-up which, besides producing storage batteries, has also launched a scheme to connect households with solar panels and other consumers in Europe’s first online energy-sharing platform. GE and existing investors in Sonnen had together put up a double-digit-million-euro sum in growth capital for Sonnen, it said in a statement.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six