GERMANY
Economy powers ahead
The economy powered ahead in the third quarter, underpinning a recovery in the eurozone. GDP rose 0.8 percent in the July to September period after increasing 0.6 percent in the previous three months, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said yesterday. That was the fastest pace in three quarters and well above the 0.6 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey. Output expanded 2.8 percent from the previous year when adjusted for working days. The report confirmed the Bundesbank’s forecast that the economy carried its strong growth momentum into the second half, putting it on course for its best performance since 2011 and potentially straining up against its maximum capacity. As the eurozone’s largest economy, that expansion is bolstering the currency bloc’s upturn and supporting the global outlook. Growth in the third quarter was driven by exports and capital investment, the statistics office said. Net trade made a positive contribution to GDP and spending on equipment was especially strong.
RETAILERS
Tesco deal wins approval
Tesco PLC yesterday won provisional approval for its £3.7 billion (US$4.9 billion) takeover of wholesaler Booker Group PLC from the UK competition regulator, moving Britain’s biggest retailer closer to securing a new avenue of growth. The Competition and Markets Authority said it had conducted an in-depth review and provisionally concluded that Tesco’s purchase of Booker does not raise competition concerns. Most analysts had expected that Tesco would have to agree store disposals to gain clearance. Both Tesco and Booker, the nation’s biggest grocery wholesaler, welcomed the announcement. Tesco said it expects to complete the deal, which also requires shareholder approval, early next year. The authority said it found that Tesco as a retailer and Booker as a wholesaler supplying caterers and independent retailers do not compete in most of their activities.
HEALTHCARE
Digital pill approved in US
US regulators have approved the first digital pill with an embedded sensor to track if patients are taking their medication properly, marking a significant step forward in the convergence of healthcare and technology. The medicine is a version of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co Ltd’s established drug Abilify for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression, containing a tracking device developed by Proteus Digital Health. The system offers doctors an objective way to measure if patients are swallowing their pills on schedule, opening up a new avenue for monitoring medicine compliance that could be applied in other therapeutic areas. Otsuka shares yesterday rose 2.5 percent after news of the US Food and Drug Administration approval late on Monday. The agency said that being able to track ingestion of medicines prescribed for mental illness might be useful “for some patients,” although the ability of the digital pill to improve patient compliance had not been proved.
ELECTRONICS
Toshiba to sell TV business
Struggling Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Corp yesterday said it has decided to sell its television business to China’s Hisense Group (海信) as part of its efforts to restore its balance sheet. Toshiba agreed with the Chinese group to sell a 95 percent stake of its Toshiba Visual Solutions unit for about ¥12.9 billion (US$114 million), it said in a statement. “Toshiba has been considering structural reforms that will... strengthen Toshiba’s financial base,” the firm 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
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San