CURRENCY
Japan mulls bitcoin use
BITPoint Japan Co, the company behind Peach Aviation Ltd’s move to let travelers use bitcoins to pay for tickets, is planning to give hundreds of thousands of Japanese retail outlets the ability to accept the digital currency. “We’re holding discussions with a retail-related company,” BITPoint president Genki Oda said in an interview. “By going through a company providing payment terminal services to shops, we have the possibility of increasing its use at one stroke. It’s easier than talking to lots of individual retailers.” Oda said the company is also talking to a big convenience store operator about using bitcoin. He said he is aiming to make an announcement by early next year. Bic Camera Inc, one of the country’s biggest electronics retailers, began accepting bitcoins at two stores in Tokyo last month.
TURKEY
Debt sale might plug deficit
Turkey might sell as much as US$8 billion in debt, a US regulatory filing said, a sign the government might be preparing to ramp up borrowing as it seeks to plug a widening budget deficit. Turkey might offer the securities from “time to time in one or more offerings” and would use the proceeds for general financing purposes, which could include the repayment of debt, a prospectus on the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s Web site said. The government has increased spending to bolster growth and policymakers have said they might miss their 1.7 percent budget deficit target this year by as much as 1 percentage point. The government has already sold US$6.25 billion of foreign-currency debt this year, exceeding the full-year target.
AVIATION
Alitalia grounded over strike
A strike on Sunday at Italian carrier Alitalia SpA, placed in administration earlier this month, grounded 200 flights, the airline said, adding that it managed to reassign about 80 percent of passengers affected. Alitalia, which has been stacking up losses for years, was placed in administration on May 2 at the demand of shareholders after staff rejected a 2 billion euros (US$2.2 billion at the current exchange rate) rescue plan involving pay cuts and 1,700 job losses. Having ruled out nationalization, the Italian government is looking for a bidder for the company, in which UAE carrier Etihad Airways has a 49 percent stake. Sunday’s strike, which affected domestic and international flights, came with talks underway on conditions surrounding the shedding announced last week of 1,358 of the airline’s 12,500 staff.
AVIATION
Airbus opens China plant
Airbus Group SE has begun building its first helicopter assembly plant in China, and the European planemaker plans to produce 18 machines a year there in hopes China might soon open up its low-altitude airspace. China currently has a shortage of civilian helicopters for emergency medical purposes and other uses due to the military’s tight control over the nation’s airspace. Airbus Helicopters plans to complete its plant in China’s Qingdao, in Shandong Province, at the end of next year. The first helicopter is scheduled to be delivered in mid-2019, its president Guillaume Faury told reporters during the laying of the foundation stone on Saturday. The plant is to be the first by a foreign helicopter manufacturer on Chinese soil, he said.
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
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured