SOUTH KOREA
Consumer confidence falls
Consumer confidence fell this month by the most in 20 months, due largely to escalating trade battles and growing worries about an economic downturn. The Bank of Korea’s monthly consumer sentiment index dropped from 105.5 last month to 101.0, the central bank said in a statement. The result was the lowest since 100.8 in April last year. The slide in sentiment follows an escalation in the trade clash between the US and China, and comes amid sluggish job growth in the country, the bank said.
FINANCE
Eurozone private loans rise
Lending to the private sector last month picked up in the eurozone as businesses borrowed more, European Central Bank data released yesterday showed. Adjusted for some purely financial transactions, the pace of growth in lending to nonfinancial firms jumped from 3.7 percent to 4.1 percent year-on-year. With growth in lending to households flat at 2.9 percent, that meant businesses accounted for all of a 0.2 percentage point increase in the pace of overall lending to the private sector, which reached 3.5 percent.
BANKING
Deutsche Bank profit falls
Deutsche Bank AG yesterday said that net profit fell to 401 million euros (US$469.2 million) in the second quarter, compared with 466 million euros a year earlier, as it incurred higher costs from a restructuring. The profit beat analysts’ estimates of 209 million euros and the bank said it was making quicker progress in cutting costs and reshaping its business model after three years of losses. The lender’s number of employees fell 1,700 to 95,400, and it confirmed its target of fewer than 90,000 by the end of next year.
AIRLINES
Ryanair warns of job cuts
Ireland’s Ryanair Holding PLC has told more than 300 pilots and cabin crew that they might lose their jobs as it cuts its Dublin-based fleet by 20 percent for the winter season after strikes hurt forward bookings. The low-cost carrier, Europe’s largest by passenger numbers, said cabin crew in Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium yesterday went on strike and about one-quarter of its Dublin-based pilots carried out their third 24-hour stoppage on Tuesday.
CHIPMAKERS
ST eyes smartphone rebound
STMicroelectronics NV yesterday forecast a rebound in smartphone chips thanks to clients, including Apple Inc, but said that growth would not benefit profitability as new products ramp up. Revenue is expected to grow about 10 percent quarterly in the third quarter to about US$2.5 billion and gross margin would be about 40 percent, it said in a statement. Before the earnings report, analysts had predicted revenue of US$2.46 billion and gross margin of 40.3 percent for the third quarter.
CHIPMAKERS
Qualcomm works with China
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that relevant departments reviewing US chipmaker Qualcomm Inc’s proposed US$44 billion takeover of the Netherlands’ NXP Semiconductors NV have had good communication with Qualcomm over the issue. Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) made the comment at a daily news briefing in Beijing. China is the only holdout from eight of the nine required global regulators to approve the deal.
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],”