RETAIL
Amazon opens Go store
More than a year after it introduced the concept, Amazon yesterday opened its artificial intelligence-powered Amazon Go store in Seattle. The store on the bottom floor of the company’s headquarters allows shoppers to scan their smartphone with the Amazon Go app at a turnstile, pick out the items they want and leave. By combining computer vision, machine-learning algorithms and sensors, Amazon can tell what people have purchased and charges their account. If someone puts an item back, they are not charged. The company in December 2016 announced the Amazon Go store and said it would open by early last year, but it delayed the debut while it worked on the technology and employees tested it out.
HOUSING
HK named least affordable
Hong Kong was named the least affordable housing market for the eighth year in a study that put Sydney in the No. 2 slot and Vancouver in third. The median price of a home in Hong Kong is 19.4 times the median annual pre-tax household income, up from 18.1 times in the previous study by Demographia, an urban planning policy consultancy. Cooling measures have failed to tame Hong Kong’s housing, with prices more than double the 1997 levels preceding a crash that obliterated two-thirds of value. Research indicates that the territory’s home prices have been driven higher by rules restricting land use, Demographia said.
CHINA
HNA shares dip before news
Shares of HNA Group Co (海航集團) units fell in Shanghai and Shenzhen trading yesterday after more of the conglomerate’s subsidiaries halted their stock from trading pending “major” announcements. Goldman Sachs Group Inc in a report last week said that HNA-related bonds have been underperforming amid speculation about the group’s ability to repay its debts, although the broker expects the Chinese conglomerate to ultimately be able to roll over its obligations.
TRANSPORTATION
DP World to invest in India
DP World Ltd, the Dubai-based port operator that manages terminals from Hong Kong to Peru, and India’s National Investment & Infrastructure Fund plan to jointly invest up to US$3 billion in the South Asian nation. The companies set up a platform to invest in ports, terminals, transportation and logistics businesses in India, DP World said in a statement yesterday. The equity is to be used to acquire assets and develop projects. DP World already operates or is developing ports in India’s Mundra, Nhava Sheva, Kochi, Chennai, Visakhaptnam and Kulpi, according to its Web site.
CHINA
Wanda fixes translation error
Wanda Hotel Development Co (萬達酒店發展) corrected a statement on a planned sale of assets that last week had appeared to contradict an English-language version of an announcement at the unit of billionaire Wang Jianlin’s (王健林) property-to-entertainment conglomerate. The Chinese-language announcement of a pending acquisition was mistaken and should have referred to a “very substantial disposal,” the hotel unit said yesterday in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing. The announcement was to explain why trading in shares of the company was halted. The group, facing intensified regulatory scrutiny over what authorities called “irrational” overseas investments, is close to reaching an agreement to sell two Australian luxury property projects, people familiar with the matter said.
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