MACAU
Casino revenue up 17%
Gambling revenue in the territory posted a 17 percent gain last month, thanks to active gaming by Chinese betters keen to play in the country’s only legal casino hub. The gains mark 25 straight months of rising gambling revenues in the former Portuguese colony. Figures released yesterday by the Macanese Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau showed that revenues rose 17 percent to 26.6 billion patacas (US$3.29 billion), exceeding analysts’ expectations of 15 to 17 percent growth.
EUROZONE
Joblessness falls to 8.2%
Unemployment across the 19-country currency area has fallen to its lowest level since the most acute phase of the global financial crisis a decade ago. Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, on Friday said that the unemployment rate in July was 8.2 percent. That was unchanged from the previous month’s rate, which Eurostat revised down from 8.3 percent. The rate is the lowest since November 2008. Across the eurozone, there were 13.38 million people unemployed in July.
ITALY
Fitch revises down outlook
Fitch Ratings on Friday revised its outlook for long-term debt from stable to negative, citing the risks of a “new and untested” coalition government. In a statement, Fitch said that it expects “fiscal loosening” from the new populist government, possibly leaving “Italy’s very high level of public debt more exposed to potential shocks.” The country’s economy was hit hard by the 2008 global financial crisis and the eurozone debt meltdown.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Renesas mulls merger
Renesas Electronics Corp, the second-biggest supplier of semiconductors used in cars, said it is considering an acquisition of Integrated Device Technology Inc to expand beyond the automotive sector. The two companies are to meet next week, and Renesas plans to make a tender offer valued at about US$6 billion, although prospects for an agreement are unclear, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Friday. The Japanese chipmaker later said in a statement that a deal with Integrated Device is just one option under consideration.
E-COMMERCE
Delivery giant plans IPO
Chinese food delivery giant Meituan Dianping (美團點評) plans to raise as much as US$4.5 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, people with knowledge of the matter said. The company plans to sell shares at between HK$60 and HK$72 apiece, the people said. Meituan is seeking a valuation of as much as US$55 billion, one of the people said. The company aims to start taking investor orders from Tuesday through Sept. 12, and expects to price the offering on Sept. 12 with shares to start trading on Sept. 20, the people said.
TAXES
Swiss whistle-blower cleared
A Swiss asset manager who in 2013 provided US prosecutors with more than 100 files from clients suspected of dodging taxes has been cleared of spying-related charges in his home country, recently published Swiss court documents showed. Martin Egli, who hired one of the country’s best-known defense attorneys to help clear his name, was awarded 33,300 Swiss francs (US$34,366) in the case, mostly for legal fees.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to