TRANSPORT
Didi raises US$5.5bn
China’s ride-hailing leader Didi Chuxing (滴滴出行) on Friday said it had raised more than US$5.5 billion in new financing amid reports that the fund injection makes it the most valuable start-up in Asia with a worth more than US$50 billion. Beijing based-Didi, which claims nearly 90 percent of China’s ride-hailing market after buying rival Uber Technologies Inc’s assets in the country last year, said it would use the money to “support its global strategy and continued investments in AI-based technologies.” Didi’s valuation makes it No. 1 in Asia and No. 2 in the world after Uber’s US$68 billion, according to rankings by the Wall Street Journal.
MEXICO
GDP surpasses expectation
The economy has fared better than expected under the uncertainty caused by US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, with GDP up 0.6 percent in the first quarter. The GDP growth, announced on Friday by the Institute of Statistics, slightly beat analysts’ expectations of a 0.5 percent boost. GDP growth was partly driven by a boost in exports, which grew 11.2 percent in the first quarter. Eighty percent go to the US. The government and central bank expect GDP to rise between 1.3 percent and 2.3 percent this year.
ENERGY
Crude prices buoy expansion
Rising crude prices helped Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp easily beat analysts’ quarterly profit expectations on Friday, setting an upbeat tone as the two companies press ahead with shale oil expansions. First-quarter results were especially robust at Exxon, with quarterly profit more than doubling to US$4.01 billion, even as production fell 4 percent. Chevron swung to a US$2.68 billion quarterly profit and turned cash flow positive, earning more than it spent, a milestone Wall Street analysts had long sought. Chevron’s results were helped by US$2.1 billion in asset sales.
PUBLISHING
Time not for sale
Time Inc’s stock tumbled on Friday after the publisher said its board is not considering a sale of the company. The New York-based company said that a number of parties expressed interest in the business, but Time’s board decided the company was better off continuing with its current plan, which includes increasing revenue from its digital operations and using its brand on other platforms such as TV, events and new products. Aside from its namesake magazine, it also owns brands like People, Sports Illustrated and Fortune. Shares ended the day down US$3.1, or 17 percent, at US$15.2.
TECHNOLOGY
Qualcomm slashes forecast
Qualcomm Inc is slashing its profit expectations after saying that Apple Inc is now refusing to pay royalties on technology used in the iPhone. Apple sued Qualcomm earlier this year, saying that the San Diego chipmaker has abused its control over essential technology and charged excessive licensing fees. Qualcomm on Friday said that Apple now says it will not pay Qualcomm any fees until the dispute is resolved. Qualcomm now expects earnings per share between US$0.75 and US$0.85 for the April to June quarter. Its previous forecast was for earnings per share between US$0.90 and US$1.15.
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