SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram back up
Instagram is back up after a partial outage of several hours, the photo-sharing social network platform said in a tweet, but its parent Facebook Inc’s app still seemed to be down for some users across the globe at press time yesterday. Certain users around the world were facing trouble in accessing widely used Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook apps earlier on Wednesday, in one of the longest outages faced by the company in the recent past. A Facebook spokesman confirmed the partial outage, but did not provide an update.
CHINA
Output growth slows to 5.3%
The nation’s industrial output slowed during the first two months of the year as unemployment rose, official data showed yesterday, while some indicators showed a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy stabilizing. Output growth at Chinese factories and workshops for the first two months slowed to 5.3 percent year-on-year, from 5.7 percent in December last year, a multiyear low and falling short of forecasts. The normally steady unemployment rate rose to 5.3 percent last month, from 4.9 percent in December, with the National Bureau of Statistics saying it had expected worse numbers.
AUTOMAKERS
VW cancels Traton IPO
Volkswagen AG’s (VW) plans to cancel a stock sale of its Traton SE trucks division, in what could have been the largest initial public offering in Europe this year, have cast a pall on the region’s already shaky market for the sales. The automaker decided to park the sale after a difficult start to this year for the global automotive industry. Chief financial officer Frank Witter on Wednesday said that the company would wait for a “better market environment.”
INVESTMENTS
Naspers eye fintech deals
Naspers Ltd wants to spend about US$1 billion in India this year as it scours the globe for investments that can replicate its blockbuster bet on China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), a person familiar with the matter said. Africa’s largest company by market value is in talks to inject about US$200 million into business loan provider Capital Float and payments security firm Wimbo as a first step, two people with knowledge of the discussions said. A Naspers representative declined to comment.
FINANCE
Network to sell 25% in IPO
Middle Eastern payment processor Network International plans to sell a 25 percent stake in an initial public offering in London. Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic own a combined 49 percent stake in Network International, while Dubai’s biggest bank Emirates NBD PJSC holds the remaining 51 percent. The company could be valued at about US$3 billion in the offering, people familiar with the matter said in November last year.
AIRLINES
Lufthansa profit slips 8%
Lufthansa, Europe’s largest airline group, yesterday said that capacity bumping up against limits at overcrowded airports would hem in growth this year as it reported that its bottom line fell last year. Net profit at the Frankfurt-based group amounted to 2.2 billion euros (US$2.5 billion), down 8 percent year-on-year. Executives said they had cut back their targets for capacity growth, or increasing the number of seats available, as infrastructure bottlenecks at airports and air traffic control make adding new flights a challenge.
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],”