LIGHTING MAKERS
Sanan in talks with Osram
Lighting maker Sanan Optoelectronics Co Ltd (三安光電) said it has held talks with Germany’s Osram Licht AG about a possible acquisition, raising the possibility of a deal that would add to what is already a record year for Chinese purchases overseas. Sanan had an “initial communication” with Osram on a potential acquisition or cooperation and met Osram once, according to a statement on Monday from the Chinese company to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Sanan did not provide details about the status of the talks. Should a purchase be completed, the Chinese company would gain control of a German high-end lighting maker that makes products such as the headlights that go into the latest BMW 7-series cars. It would add to a series of Chinese purchases of German industrial companies that has raised concerns among politicians in the European country. Sanan, established in 2000 on the southeastern Chinese island of Xiamen, makes products that go into indoor and outdoor lighting, as well as traffic lights and aerospace.
LOGISTICS
Pos Malaysia eyes Alibaba
Malaysia’s biggest postal company is seeking a more direct role in providing logistics services to Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), tapping a boom in online retailing. Pos Malaysia Bhd plans talks with Alibaba this month on bypassing the middlemen when shipping goods sold on its platforms, chief executive officer Mohd Shukrie Mohd Salleh said. Surging parcel deliveries for online shopping drove a 40 percent jump in profit in the fiscal first quarter and full-year earnings will be higher than a year earlier, he said. “My focus is still e-commerce, and it is driving the logistics business...Marketplace owners want to deal with logistic players directly,” he said, adding that he is going to China to meet up with Alibaba and other market players this month. Postal companies in Asia are remodeling themselves by expanding overseas to meet rising demand spurred by a global retail e-commerce market valued at about US$1.2 trillion by the Universal Postal Union. Pos Malaysia, which started work in the early 1800s delivering mail by bicycle, is the top performer this year among 14 global courier stocks with a market value of at least US$500 million, recording a total return of 49 percent, beating United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp.
BRITAIN
Falling pound a boon: Davis
British Secretary of State for Exiting the EU David Davis broke with government convention to say that he could see advantages to the pound falling to a three-decade low, arguing the decline would help exporters. “While it has some downsides, it certainly has a very large number of upsides, too,” he said. Davis’ comments mark a break from usual government practice of not commenting on the currency markets. Former Bank of England governor Mervyn King later echoed that view, telling Sky News the decline in the pound was a “welcome change.” The pound has been this year’s worst performer among 32 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg. It has fallen 17 percent since the vote to leave the EU and 4.7 percent since Davis and British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday last week signaled that they might not prioritize membership of the single market. There are two sides to the falling currency, which tends to boost exports and tourism. Companies making money abroad, such as Burberry, can benefit.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts