AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai expects slowdown
South Korea’s biggest automaking group, which last year faced a consumer backlash in China over tensions between the two countries, forecast a slowdown in sales this year, as political risks dent demand for its vehicles in the world’s major markets. Hyundai Motor Co and affiliate Kia Motors Corp yesterday said their combined sales last year dropped 7 percent to 7.25 million units, the least in five years and 1 million short of its record target. Citing stalling global economic growth, rising protectionism and dangers posed by geopolitics as threats, the companies set a goal to sell 7.55 million vehicles this year. With Ford Motor Co on its heels, Hyundai Motor group is fighting to maintain its rank as the world’s fifth-biggest automaker after underperforming rivals in the US.
ENERGY
BP to take tax hit from US
British energy major BP PLC yesterday said that it expected to take a US$1.5 billion hit from US President Donald Trump’s tax reforms. “The lowering of the US corporate income tax rate to 21 percent requires revaluation of BP’s US deferred tax assets and liabilities,” the company said in a statement. “The current estimated impact of this will be a one-off non-cash charge to the group income statement of around [US] $1.5 billion that will impact BP’s fourth quarter 2017 results.” However, the energy giant cautioned that longer-term earnings would be “positively impacted” by the US changes. The reform taxes these earnings at 15.5 percent on cash and equivalents and 8 percent on real estate and other illiquid assets.
SOCIAL MEDIA
WeChat denies storing chats
Tencent Holdings’ (騰訊) WeChat, China’s most popular messenger app, yesterday denied storing users’ chat histories, after a top businessman was quoted in media reports as saying he believed Tencent was monitoring everyone’s account. “WeChat does not store any users’ chat history. That is only stored in users’ mobiles, computers and other terminals,” WeChat said in a post on the social media platform. “WeChat will not use any content from user chats for big data analysis. Because of WeChat’s technical model that does not store or analyze user chats, the rumor that ‘we are watching your WeChat everyday’ is pure misunderstanding.” Li Shufu (李書福), chairman of Geely Holdings (吉利控股), owner of the Volvo car brand, was quoted in Chinese media on Monday as saying Tencent chairman Ma Huateng (馬化騰) “must be watching all our WeChats every day.”
SINGAPORE
Economy solid at end of year
The economy finished last year on a solid footing, allowing more room for policymakers as they consider raising taxes and tightening monetary policy this year. Growth was faster than economists predicted last quarter, resulting in the strongest full-year expansion in three years, preliminary figures released yesterday showed. The data also confirmed the recovery is broadening out, with services industries, such as finance and transport, among the main drivers of growth in the fourth quarter. GDP rose at a seasonally adjusted and annualized rate of 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter from the previous three months; median estimate of eight economists in a Bloomberg survey was for a 1.6 percent gain. GDP climbed 3.1 percent from a year earlier. Singapore, among Asia’s most export-reliant economies, has benefited from a global trade recovery that has boosted demand for its electronics goods.
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
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