E-COMMERCE
Amazon drops appeal
Amazon.com Inc has dropped its appeal of a US regulator’s order and will pay refunds up to US$70 million for app purchases by children on its tablet computers, officials said on Tuesday. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced it filed a joint request with Amazon to withdraw a court challenge to an order from last year, which was similar to actions taken against Apple Inc and Google for failing to get parental authorization for purchases made by minors in their respective app stores. The end of the litigation clears the way for refunds of about US$70 million for in-app charges made between November 2011 and May last year. “This case demonstrates what should be a bedrock principle for all companies — you must get customers’ consent before you charge them,” FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection acting director Thomas Pahl said.
BANKING
Credit Suisse plan panned
Glass Lewis & Co is advising Credit Suisse Group AG shareholders to reject the bank’s proposal to pay 26 million Swiss francs (US$26 million) in short-term bonuses to its executive board. The amount appears “wholly inappropriate given the loss suffered by shareholders in the last two fiscal years,” the proxy adviser said in its recommendations for the bank’s annual meeting on April 28. The group also said the proposed compensation for the bank’s board of directors is “excessive.” Swiss law requires companies listed in the country to give their shareholders a binding annual vote on pay packages for executives and directors. Lavish corporate pay packages have become controversial with Swiss taxpayers, especially since 2008 when they bailed out UBS Group AG, the country’s biggest bank.
FASHION
Fifth Avenue Polo closing
Ralph Lauren Corp on Tuesday said that it is shuttering its high-profile Polo store on New York’s Fifth Avenue, less than three years after opening it. The closure, which will happen later this month, is part of the New York fashion company’s plan to save US$140 million annually. The company said it will close other stores, cut jobs and shut some corporate offices, but did not provide details. The company is trying to turn its business around in the face of falling revenue. Like other traditional brands, Ralph Lauren has been hurt by sluggish performance at major department stores as shoppers increasingly skip the mall and shop online. Chief executive officer Stefan Larsson, who was hired less than two years ago to revive the brand, is leaving next month. Chief financial officer Jane Nielsen is to lead the company until a successor is found.
REAL ESTATE
Vancouver market cools
Home sales in the Vancouver region’s once-boiling housing market soared last month from February and prices edged higher, but activity was sharply lower than a year ago, the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver said on Tuesday. Last month’s sales rose 47.6 percent from a month earlier, but were down 30.8 percent from the record-setting pace a year ago and 7.9 percent above the 10-year average for the month, the board said. Vancouver’s housing market, the most expensive in Canada, has slowed since the provincial government of British Columbia imposed a 15 percent foreign buyers tax in August last year amid concern that speculation by global investors, mostly from China, was fueling a bubble.
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