MALAYSIA
Growth weakest since 2009
Economic growth eased in the second quarter, the central bank said yesterday, attributing the slowdown to a decline in exports amid subdued global demand. The economy grew 4 percent year-on-year in the April-to-June period, compared with 4.2 percent in the first quarter and 4.9 percent in the second quarter of last year. It is the country’s slowest rate of expansion since a 1.1 percent contraction in the third quarter of 2009 during the global financial crisis. The central bank said economic growth was expected to be 4 to 4.5 percent this year — slowest in seven years.
ITALY
Economy stalls in Q2
The economy stalled in the second quarter of the year, official data indicated yesterday, exacerbating fears a sluggish recovery from recession is running out of steam. Output in the three month to the end of June was the same as in the first quarter of this year, leaving annual growth at 0.7 percent. Minister of Finance Pier Carlo Padoan had recently predicted 0.1 to 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter growth.
E-COMMERCE
Alibaba shares up 5.6%
Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) on Thursday jumped as the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse added shoppers and mobile revenue surged. The Hong Kong-based Alibaba reported fiscal first-quarter earnings of US$1.14 billion, or US$0.44 per share, beating Wall Street expectations. The online retailer’s revenue jumped 59 percent to US$4.84 billion in the period, also beating forecasts. Alibaba shares rose 5.6 percent to US$92.22 in afternoon trading.
SHIPPING
Moller-Maersk profit dives
Denmark’s shipping and oil group A.P. Moller-Maersk said its profit dropped 89 percent year-on-year in the second quarter, negatively impacted by significantly lower container freight rates and oil prices. The Copenhagen-based group yesterday said that profit dropped from US$1.09 billion to US$118 million in the second quarter. Revenue fell from US$6.3 billion to US$5.1 billion, down. The group said its full-year expectation of “an underlying result significantly below last year” which was US$3.1 billion, was “unchanged.”
SOFTWARE
Microsoft buying Beam
Microsoft Corp on Thursday said it is bolstering its Xbox arsenal with the purchase of a start-up specializing in letting people join in the fun while watching live-streamed game play. Microsoft did not disclose financial terms of the deal to buy Seattle-based Beam, which puts an interactive spin on the hot trend of video games being spectator sports. Beam, which launched in January, is to become part of the team at Microsoft devoted to the technology titan’s Xbox consoles.
TECHNOLOGY
HPE buying graphics firm
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is buying Silicon Graphics International Corp (SGI) for about US$275 million in cash, adding high-performance computing capabilities that improve data analytics. HPE expects the deal to be neutral to earnings in the first full year and will add to profit thereafter, the companies said on Thursday in a statement. SGI’s machines helped create advanced computer-generated images for Hollywood movies in the 1990s.
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
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
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
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