INTERNET
Snap shares hit new low
Shares of Snapchat parent Snap Inc sank to new lows on Thursday after the company reported a hefty quarterly loss and user growth that missed Wall Street expectations. Revenue at the California-based company more than doubled to US$182 million while its loss soared to US$443 million in the quarter that ended June 30, according to an earnings release. Snap reported a loss of US$116 million in the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, the average number of people using the vanishing message service daily rose 21 percent to 173 million when compared with the same period a year earlier.
SINGAPORE
GDP growth beats forecast
The economy grew at a faster pace in the second quarter than previously estimated by the government, as a recovery in global trade helped to buoy manufacturing. GDP rose a seasonally adjusted and annualized 2.2 percent in the second quarter from the previous three months, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said yesterday, revising its earlier estimate of 0.4 percent. Compared with the same period last year, GDP rose 2.9 percent in the second quarter. The ministry also narrowed growth forecast range for this year from 1 to 3 percent to 2 to 3 percent. The economy is likely to grow 2.5 percent this year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) said on Tuesday, up from 2 percent last year.
MEXICO
Interest rates unchanged
The central bank on Thursday held its key interest rate steady in a sign that jitters over US trade ties were easing, with inflation expected to peak soon. The bank left the rate for Latin America’s second-largest economy at 7 percent, it said in a statement. It has stood at that level since June when it saw the latest in a series of hikes. Official data on Wednesday showed the inflation rate hit a new eight-year high last month. However, Capital Economics Ltd forecast that it will peak this month and decline over the second half of the year.
BANKING
Bank targets securities
Credit Suisse Group AG has banned its traders from buying or selling certain Venezuelan securities that critics of the nation’s government say help fund an authoritarian regime. The Zurich-based bank is halting trading in two bonds issued by the state and its oil company, as well as any notes from a Venezuelan entity after June 1, according to a company memo from Monday, a copy of which was seen by reporters. The lender is also restricting business with Venezuelan counterparts, including private individuals and companies. A Credit Suisse representative confirmed the memo’s contents.
MEDIA
News Corp reports loss
US media group News Corp on Thursday reported a loss in the past quarter, hit by declines in advertising and writedowns at its global newspapers. The company controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his family reported a loss of US$430 million in the fiscal quarter ending June 30. Revenues slipped 6.6 percent from a year earlier to US$2.08 billion. The group, which operates the Wall Street Journal as well as British and Australian newspapers, also took a hit from the strong US dollar. The company was required to take a charge of US$464 million to mark down the value of its assets at British newspapers.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained