COMMUNICATIONS
Ericsson to cut 25,000 staff
Ericsson AB plans to cut as many as 25,000 employees, or about 20 percent of its workforce, amid cutthroat competition and shrinking sales, Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the Swedish maker of mobile-phone networks declined to comment on the report. Last month, Ericsson’s second-biggest shareholder, Industrivaerden AB, was unusually candid in its critique of the mobile-network manufacturer, saying its shares had underperformed in the face of market changes.
RIDE-HAILERS
Didi Chuxing raises US$7.3bn
Chinese ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing (滴滴出行), a bitter rival of US-based Uber, has raised US$7.3 billion in one of the world’s largest private-equity financing rounds, the company said yesterday. Didi claims almost 90 percent of the market in the world’s most populous nation, with about 300 million registered passengers and more than 14 million rides per day. The latest financing deals value the firm at close to US$28 billion, Bloomberg News reported. Didi said that investors in its latest financing round include Apple Inc and China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽).
ELECTRONICS
Samsung to buy Joyent
Samsung Electronics Co has agreed to buy a US cloud service start-up as it seeks to boost software and services. The South Korean company said Thursday that its acquisition of Joyent Inc would allow Samsung to access its own cloud platform rather than renting another company’s data centers to run its Internet-based services. The company did not disclose financial terms.
AUTO PARTS
US charges Japanese firms
The US on Wednesday charged two Japanese auto-parts companies and five executives with price-fixing in a long-running investigation into illegal competitive practices in the parts industry. A federal grand jury in Ohio indicted Tokai Kogyo and Maruyasu Industries and their US subsidiaries on charges of participating in international conspiracies to rig bids and fix prices in the sale of auto-body sealing products and steel tubing, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. A total of five executives were also charged in the scheme.
RETAIL
Inditex posts rise in profit
Spanish clothes retailer Inditex, owner of the Zara store chain, on Wednesday reported a 6 percent rise in its first-quarter net profit due to higher sales worldwide. The world’s largest fashion retailer by sales said profit for the quarter ending April 30 rose to 554 million euros (US$621 million) from 521 million euros a year earlier. The company, which operates eight store brands, including upmarket label Massimo Dutti and teen chain Bershka, said sales reached 4.9 billion euros, a 12 percent annual increase. Sales were up by 17 percent in constant currency terms, which irons out currency fluctuations.
RETAIL
Wal-Mart to cut jobs
Wal-Mart Stores Inc is cutting jobs in accounting and other back-office positions at about 500 locations in the western region of the US. Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg on Wednesday said the move would affect two or three people per store, totaling as many as 1,500 workers. However, those employees are expected to be offered positions that involve direct contact with shoppers, such as working in the online pickup department or as pharmacy technicians.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last