TELECOMS
BT fined record 42m pounds
BT Group Plc was fined a record £42 million (US$53 million) and ordered to pay another £300 million to competitors after an investigation found the former phone monopoly failed to adequately reimburse them for service delays. The UK communications regulator Ofcom levied the fine for a “serious breach” of rules, according to a statement late on Sunday. The fine dwarfed any previous Ofcom penalty and puts another black mark on the record of chief executive officer Gavin Patterson. The rebuke is a further blow to BT over its network division Openreach, which the company agreed to legally separate this month after months of difficult negotiations with the regulator that is seeking greater independence for the unit and more spending on full-fiber broadband. The penalty tops a £3.7 million fine for Vodafone Group PLC last year for poor customer service arising from an overhaul of its billing system.
IVORY COAST
Nation to ask for IMF aid
The government said it is seeking more assistance from the IMF to support the nation’s budget for this year after cocoa prices slumped, hurting the finances of the world’s biggest grower. “With cocoa prices falling, we have some new budget constraints,” government spokesman Bruno Kone said by telephone from the commercial capital, Abidjan, on Sunday. The government is to issue the request as representatives of the IMF visit the West African nation until the first week of next month for a review of the country’s three-year extended credit facility agreement of about US$660 million. Cocoa futures in London have slumped by about a third since reaching a six-year high in July last year.
REFINING
Sinopec profits surge
State-owned Chinese energy giant China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec, 中國石油化工) said net profit last year jumped 44 percent, its first annual profit rise in three years, as strong demand and better margins in its downstream refining business helped offset low oil prices. Sinopec saw net profit surge to 46.7 billion yuan (US$6.8 billion), it said in a statement filed late on Sunday to the Hong Kong stock exchange, where it is listed. Asia’s biggest refiner had seen profits dive around 30 percent in 2014 and 2015. Sinopec president Dai Houliang (戴厚良) said one reason for the “better-than-expected” results is that “demand for chemicals grew steadily.” While the upstream business was sluggish owing to low international crude oil prices, the downstream refining business improved as domestic demand for refined oil products held steady, and “grew steadily” for chemicals, Dai said.
ENERGY
Toshiba shares dip further
Toshiba’s loss-hit US nuclear unit could be placed under bankruptcy protection as early as this week, a report said yesterday, sending shares in the Japanese giant lower. Westinghouse Electric is likely to file for Chapter 11 today and is eyeing Korea Electric Power Co to help with its subsequent restructuring, Japan’s Nikkei Shinbun said, without citing sources. The company has lost more than half its market value since late December last year, when it warned of multi-billion-dollar losses at Westinghouse and said it was investigating claims of accounting fraud by senior executives at the division. A Tokyo-based Toshiba spokesman declined to comment the Nikkei report.
RETAIL
Phone shopping booming
The nation posted the biggest growth in Greater China in terms of the number of people shopping via smartphones, according to the results of a survey on mobile shopping conducted by MasterCard Inc. The survey revealed that 51.2 percent of consumers in Taiwan made a purchase using their smartphone in the three months preceding the survey, up 4.6 percent from last year, the biggest growth in the region. In the Asia-Pacific region, Indians top the list with 75.8 percent of respondents using their smartphones to shop in the three-month period, followed by Chinese consumers at 71.4 percent and Thai respondents at 64.9 percent. The top three items bought on phones in Taiwan are cosmetics and skin-care products (28.3 percent), clothing and fashion accessories (25.9 percent), and coupons from discount sites (24.3 percent).
COMPUTERS
Asustek denies AR report
Personal computer vendor Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday dismissed media speculation that the company plans to spin off its augmented reality (AR) operations as an independent subsidiary. A Chinese-language Commercial Times report said that an AR and 3D real-time software team established by Asustek has been allowed to raise capital to develop an AR business and is expected to be spun off as an independent company if it successfully attracts international partners. The software team has launched a 3D real-time video beautification application on Windows and iOS under the name Glamorfy Taiwan. Asustek said in a statement that the software team accounts for only a small percentage of the its AR and virtual reality operations workforce.
GAMING
Gamania does Ncsoft deal
Online game publisher Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子) yesterday said it has secured the sole distribution rights of South Korean video game developer Ncsoft Corp’s Lineage M game in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. The mobile game will be available in South Korea in the first half of this year and in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau in the second half, Gamania said in a statement. The company said it plans to roll out at least five mobile games in Taiwan this year.
COMPUTERS
Clevo Group income plunges
Personal computer maker Clevo Group (藍天) yesterday reported net income of NT$594 million (US$19.64 million), or earnings per share of NT$0.92, for last year, down 41.68 percent year-on-year from NT$1.02 billion, or earnings per share of NT$1.57, due to the shrinking personal computer industry. Clevo’s board approved spending NT$478.21 million to distribute a NT$0.7 cash dividend per common share based on last year’s earnings. That would translate into a payout ratio of 76.08 percent and suggests a yield of 2.46 percent based on Clevo shares’ closing price of NT$28.35 in Taipei trading yesterday.
FOOTWEAR
Pou Chen income up 37%
Footwear manufacturer Pou Chen Corp (寶成工業) yesterday reported annual growth of 37 percent in net income to NT$13.06 billion last year, or earnings per share of NT$4.43. Revenue increased 2.2 percent year-on-year to NT$274.9 billion last year, while gross margin improved from 24 percent to 25.6 percent, the company said in a statement. It attributed the performance to stable growth in its shoe business, which accounts for more than 70 percent of its total revenue.
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day