TECHNOLOGY
Apple buying Texture
Apple Inc said it is acquiring Texture, a digital magazine service that lets users subscribe to more than 200 magazines for US$9.99 per month. Texture, offered via the app stores of Apple, Google and Amazon.com Inc, bolsters Apple’s efforts in online services and media. The Cupertino, California-based company aims to top US$50 billion in annual services revenue by 2021, and a magazine subscription service would likely contribute to that. The deal might help Apple boost relations with news outlets that have become wary of Facebook Inc and Google. Some publishers reported losing online traffic from Facebook after the social media network recently refocused on content from friends and family. Texture’s magazine catalog includes Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, Vanity Fair, Vogue and Bloomberg Businessweek.
INDIA
Inflation falls to 4.44 percent
Inflation dropped to less than 5 percent for the first time in three months, giving the central bank room to keep interest rates on hold for longer while providing relief to battered bond investors. Government data on Monday showed inflation at 4.44 percent last month, less than the 5.07 percent in January and less than the 4.7 percent estimate of economists polled by Bloomberg News. The easing for the second straight month offers bond investors in the country — the worst-performing market among major Asian economies — something of a temporary cheer. The benchmark 10-year bond yield fell three basis points to 7.6 percent.
UTILITIES
EON to cut up to 5,000 jobs
German utility EON SE on Monday said it plans to cut up to 5,000 jobs as part of its takeover of renewables unit Innogy from rival RWE AG, in a deal that would redraw the country’s energy landscape. In a joint statement, EON and RWE said they planned to complete their asset swap transaction, which surprised investors when it was unveiled this weekend, “by the end of 2019.” EON said it expects the takeover to generate about 600 million to 800 million euros (US$739.7 million to US$986.2 million) in savings annually from 2022, but added that the “integration process” would lead to “a reduction of a maximum of 5,000 jobs” out of a total of about 70,000 jobs. The ultimate goal of the transaction is to allow EON to focus on retail customers and on managing energy networks, essentially buying and selling electricity, while RWE is to specialize in generating power from fossil fuels and renewables.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Coincheck refunds US$440m
Japan-based virtual currency exchange Coincheck yesterday said it had refunded more than US$440 million to customers following the hack of its systems, which was one of the largest thefts of its kind. The company said it used its own funds to reimburse about ¥46.6 billion (US$434.8 million) to all 260,000 customers who lost their holdings of NEM, a leading cryptocurrency. “Procedures have been completed with the accounts of all 260,000 customers,” company spokesman Yosuke Imai told reporters. Thieves siphoned 523 million units of the cryptocurrency from Coincheck — then valued at US$547 million — during the Jan. 26 hack, which exceeded the US$480 million in bitcoin stolen in 2014 from another Japanese exchange, Mt. Gox. The 2014 hack prompted Japan to issue regulations requiring exchanges to obtain a license, but Coincheck was allowed to continue operating while the Japanese Financial Services Agency was reviewing its application.
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
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by