TECHNOLOGY
E Ink to settle ongoing suits
E-paper display supplier E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技) said its South Korean LCD subsidiary Hydis Technologies Co have accepted advice from the Seoul High Court to settle prolonged legal disputes with its former employees. The legal suits between Hydis and former employees of the South Korean firm over allegations of improper job cuts have been withdrawn, Hydis said in a company statement on Tuesday last week. The lawsuit for a damage request was also withdrawn, it said. The legal battles between Hydis and its former employees, including 58 workers from the manufacturing division and 15 equipment division workers, began after Hydis shut down factories and laid off almost all workers due to nonstop losses in 2015.
JAPAN
Fuel imports top exports
The nation logged a trade deficit last month, the first negative figure in eight months, as imports of fossil fuel overwhelmed revenue from exports, government data showed yesterday. The world’s third-largest economy registered a trade balance deficit of ¥943.4 billion (US$8.86 billion) last month, the first since May last year, the Ministry of Finance said. The market had expected a deficit of ¥1.02 trillion. Exports rose 12.2 percent to ¥6.086 trillion, but imports also rose 7.9 percent to ¥7.029 trillion.
MINING
Platinum firm to pay dividend
Anglo American Platinum Ltd declared its first dividend in six years after the world’s largest producer of the precious metal cut its net debt by 75 percent from a year earlier and more than doubled annual profit. The company, controlled by Anglo American PLC, is to pay 3.49 rands a share, resuming payouts halted in 2012 as it grappled with plunging platinum prices. Operational improvements and cost-cutting measures helped to boost earnings, the Johannesburg-based mining company said. “The hard work of the past five years has enabled us to today announce that we have reintroduced the dividend, establishing a payout ratio of 30 percent of headline earnings,” chief executive officer Chris Griffith said in the statement.
MANUFACTURING
Reckitt ends stagnant sales
Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC said it expects to bounce back from its worst year ever. The England-based maker of Durex condoms and Nurofen painkillers forecast that comparable sales are to rise by 2 to 3 percent this year, after the first 12-month period of stagnant sales in the company’s history. On that basis, sales were up 2 percent in the fourth quarter. The company is eyeing a comeback from a sour year marred by a cyberattack and lackluster demand for new products. Chief executive officer Rakesh Kapoor has moved to separate its home care and health businesses, sharpening his focus on brands such as Strepsils and Mucinex.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
SEC questions firms’ assets
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has halted trading in three companies that claimed acquisitions of assets tied to cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies, saying that the agency had questions about their business operations and the value of their assets. Cherubim Interests Inc, PDX Partners Inc and Victura Construction Group Inc issued similar news releases saying that they had acquired the assets from a subsidiary of a private-equity investor, the SEC said in a statement on Friday last week.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”