AUTOMAKERS
Toyota raises US investment
Toyota Motor Corp announced on Thursday that it would boost its planned US investment by US$3 billion to US$13 billion over five years to boost manufacturing in multiple states. The Japanese automaker said the new investment, which would create 586 new jobs, is the initial amount for projects that include adding the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid and a Lexus ES 300h hybrid to production at its Georgetown, Kentucky plant. Toyota also plans to expand engine capacity at its Huntsville, Alabama facility.
INTERNET
Apple answers complaint
Apple Inc on Thursday responded to Spotify Technology SA’s complaint with EU antitrust regulators, saying that the audio streaming service “wants all the benefits of a free app without being free.” Spotify on Wednesday said that Apple unfairly limits rivals to its own music streaming service. Apple’s control of its App Store deprives consumers of choice, it added. In response, Apple said it had approved and distributed nearly 200 app updates on Spotify’s behalf, resulting in more than 300 million downloaded copies of the Spotify app.
EUROZONE
Car sales continue to drop
European car sales declined last month for the sixth straight month, although improvements in some of the biggest markets of Germany, France and the UK indicate a turnaround could be on the horizon. Passenger car registrations dropped 0.9 percent compared with the same month last year, the European Automobile Manufacturers Association said yesterday. While German, French and UK sales rose for the first time since September last year, registrations fell a sharp 8.8 percent in Spain and 2.4 percent in Italy.
INVESTMENT
TPG fires fund founder
TPG said it fired Bill McGlashan, founder of the private equity firm’s social-impact funds, after he was charged this week in a wide-ranging college admissions scandal. The company is also allowing investors in its second social impact fund to withdraw their commitments, a person familiar with the matter said. McGlashan, who led TPG’s business focused on social good and founded its growth investing platform, was named in an indictment detailing schemes that involved paying coaches and college administrators to get children into top colleges.
CRYPTOCURRENCIES
Mt. Gox founder sentenced
A Tokyo court yesterday handed Mark Karpeles, the founder of the now defunct Mt. Gox bitcoin currency exchange, a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence for his role in the loss of hundreds of millions of US dollars worth of bitcoins and cash, Kyodo news agency reported. The court suspended the sentence for Karpeles for four years, finding the French national guilty of data manipulation, but innocent on charges of embezzlement, Kyodo said. Karpeles had pleaded not guilty to both charges.
SINGAPORE
Home sales improve
Private-home sales in Singapore rose last month, one signal the market might be recovering from cooling measures implemented last year. Developers sold 455 units, a 4.4 percent increase compared with January’s 436, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) said in a statement yesterday. The number of new apartments launched for sale was 596, compared with 498 in January and 101 in December last year, a month typically slower due to the holiday season, URA data showed.
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],”
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
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