E-COMMERCE
JD.com losses surge
JD.com Inc (京東) posted a blowout loss due to increased spending and said investments in technology and logistics could affect profit forecasts for the rest of the year amid rising competition in China’s e-commerce market. The net loss from continuing operations surged to 2.2 billion yuan (US$319.8 million) in the quarter that ended in June, about eight times larger than analysts expected. The Beijing-based company expects sales in this quarter of between 104.5 billion yuan and 109 billion yuan. Sales for the second quarter rose 31 percent to 122.3 billion yuan.
AUSTRALIA
Free-trade deals progress
The government expects to seal free-trade agreements with Indonesia and Hong Kong by year’s end, Minister for Trade and Investment Steven Ciobo said yesterday. Ciobo gave no further details on timing, although a deal with Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, but only Australia’s 13th-largest trading partner, could come as soon as next month when Australia’s prime minister is scheduled to visit.
MALAYSIA
GDP growth slows
The nation’s economy grew at its slowest pace in more than a year as Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad made good on his election pledge to scale back government spending. GDP increased 4.5 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the central bank said yesterday, lower than the 5.4 percent gain in the previous three months and missing the 5.2 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 21 economists. GDP rose 0.3 percent from the previous three months, the central bank said.
CHIPMAKERS
Nvidia forecast unpromising
Nvidia Corp, the biggest maker of graphics processors, on Thursday gave a lackluster forecast and said a greater-than-expected drop in demand for chips used by cryptocurrency miners has put a lid on sales growth. Revenue in the fiscal third quarter would be US$3.25 billion, plus or minus-2 percent, the company said in a statement. That would fall short of analysts’ average estimate of US$3.35 billion. Nvidia had a profit of US$1.1 billion, or US$1.76 a share, in the fiscal second quarter, while revenue surged to a record of US$3.12 billion.
RETAIL
Walmart beats predictions
Walmart Inc on Thursday raised its financial outlook for the year after beating Wall Street’s expectations for the quarter and seeing the strongest growth in more than a decade in sales at established stores. Sales at stores open at least a year rose 4.5 percent at Walmart’s US division, better than analysts expected. Adjusted for one-time costs, it earned US$1.29 per share. Walmart now expects earnings for this fiscal year of US$4.90 to US$5.05 per share, excluding charges related to Flipkart. Analysts expected US$4.78 per share, FactSet said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
I-Mab Biopharma seeks IPO
Chinese drug developer I-Mab Biopharma Co (天境生物) is poised to seek approval for a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) that could raise as much as US$500 million, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Shanghai-based company plans to submit an application to the Hong Kong stock exchange next week, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is confidential. I-Mab aims to complete the share sale by the end of the year, they 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
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