AUTOMAKERS
US car sales down
Passenger car sales plummeted again last month, dragging US auto sales to their third straight monthly decline, a strong indication that years of sales growth have come to an end. Sales fell 1.6 percent to just over 1.55 million vehicles, surprising analysts who expected a small increase. However, the auto industry is not worried for now, as it is making solid money selling reams of SUVs and trucks to consumers who are loading up on expensive features, but some analysts see large inventories of cars as a looming problem. Car sales were down almost 11 percent, while truck and SUV sales rose 5.2 percent, according to Autodata Corp. Hyundai suffered the biggest decline at 8 percent, followed by Ford at 7.5 percent.
AUSTRALIA
Economy still on hold
The nation kept interest rates unchanged, remaining in a form of policy paralysis as housing is too hot to allow an easing and the economy lacks the strength to absorb a tightening. Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe and his board left the cash rate at a record-low 1.5 percent yesterday, after Sydney property prices soared last month at the fastest annual pace in almost 15 years and unemployment climbed to its highest level since the beginning of last year. The decision was expected by all 29 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. “Recent data are consistent with ongoing moderate growth,” Lowe said in a statement. “Some indicators of conditions in the labor market have softened recently. In particular, the unemployment rate has moved a little higher and employment growth is modest.” Australia’s economy is in a holding pattern as growth fails to spur significant hiring, resulting in weak wages and subdued inflation.
AUTOMAKERS
Robo-taxi partnership forms
Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler AG and supplier Robert Bosch GmbH are teaming up to develop self-driving cars in an alliance primarily aimed at accelerating the production of “robo-taxis.” The pact between the world’s largest maker of premium cars and the world’s largest automotive supplier forms a powerful counterweight to new industry players such as Uber and Didi, which are working on self-driving cars with a business model geared toward clients who want to use rather than own cars. The alliance, which marks an end to Daimler’s efforts to develop an autonomous car largely on its own, comes as tech companies and automakers such as BMW are forming rival strategic partnerships. Bosch is to develop software and algorithms needed for autonomous driving together with the Stuttgart-based automaker.
GAMING
Rakuten starts game division
Rakuten Inc is betting on a future without apps. The e-commerce company unveiled Rakuten Games yesterday, seeking to deliver titles that do not have to be installed on phones or personal computers. The games can be played on Web browsers or within other apps, making it easier for users to play with each other without having to wait for new software to be loaded onto their devices. Titles based on Pacman and Space Invaders are among the 15 games available on the platform. Facebook Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) have also embraced similar initiatives, seeking to keep users within their apps and services instead of venturing to app stores. Rakuten is aiming for a slice of revenue in the mobile gaming-app market, which made up 81 percent of total app sales of US$62 billion last year, according to App Annie.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by