AUTOMAKERS
hosn to head Mitsubishi
Nissan Motor Co and Renault SA chairman Carlos Ghosn is set to add that title at Mitsubishi Motors Corp, people with knowledge of the matter said, putting him on track to become the first executive to head three different automakers at the same time. Nissan is acquiring a 34 percent stake in Mitsubishi Motors, which sought a rescue following an admission that it improperly measured for fuel economy and manipulated testing data. Mitsubishi yesterday forecast a steeper loss, its first in eight years, due to costs tied to the scandal. The Tokyo-based automaker said the net loss for the fiscal year ending March 31 would probably balloon to ¥240 billion (US$2.32 billion) from an earlier prediction of a deficit of ¥145 billion.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford cuts production
Ford Motor Co is cutting production as US demand for new vehicles slows. The company on Tuesday said it would temporarily idle four of its North American assembly plants this month to better align production with demand. After six consecutive years of growth, US sales of new vehicles are slowing. In the first nine months of the year, US sales totaled 13.1 million new vehicles, up less than 1 percent from the same period last year. Rivals General Motors Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV on Tuesday both said that all of their plants are operating normally.
RETAIL
Carrefour beats estimates
Carrefour SA, France’s largest retailer, reported third-quarter revenue that beat analysts’ estimates on stronger-than-expected growth in its home country. Sales rose 3.2 percent on a like-for-like basis to 21.8 billion euros (US$23.97 billion), Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based Carrefour said in a statement yesterday. Analysts expected 21.7 billion euros. In France, sales climbed 1.2 percent, beating the estimate of 0.5 percent growth. Carrefour shares have fallen 12 percent this year, compared with a 9.4 percent decline in the STOXX 600 Retail Index.
ENERGY
Shanghai eyes K-Electric
Shanghai Electric Power Co (上海電力) is nearing a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Pakistani utility K-Electric Ltd from buyout firm Abraaj Group, people familiar with the matter said. The state-backed Chinese company has been in exclusive negotiations to buy Abraaj’s 66 percent stake in the US$2.4 billion power generator, the people said. A formal agreement could come as early as this week, though the timing is still fluid, the people said. Pakistani regulations would require Shanghai Electric to make a mandatory offer to minority shareholders of K-Electric, the people said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
ASML forecast surprises
ASML Holding NV, Europe’s largest semiconductor-equipment maker, forecast profitability above analysts’ estimates in the final three months of the year. Gross margin will be as high as 48 percent in the fourth quarter, the Veldhoven, Netherlands-based company said in a statement yesterday. That prediction compared with the average estimate of 43.6 percent as more customers ordered its so-called extreme ultraviolet lithography technology. Revenue in the fourth quarter will be 1.7 billion euros to 1.8 billion euros, ASML forecast. The company reported its third-quarter sales rose 17 percent to 1.82 billion euros, while net income rose 23 percent to 396 million euros.
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