JAPAN
Factory output rises 1.4%
The nation’s factory output last month rose 1.4 percent month-on-month after a 3.4 percent dip in January, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said yesterday. The reading compared with market expectations of a 1 percent rise. Factory output is “pausing” on the whole, the ministry said, but forecast a rise this month and next month. Meanwhile, the jobless rate fell from 2.5 percent in January to 2.3 percent last month, its lowest level since 1993, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said, as the country’s job market remains tight against the backdrop of an aging population.
VIETNAM
GDP growth slows to 6.79%
Economic growth slowed in the first quarter amid weakening global demand and ongoing US-China trade tensions. GDP rose 6.79 percent from a year earlier, down from a previously reported 7.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, the General Statistics Office said in Hanoi yesterday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of five economists was for growth of 6.5 percent. Consumer prices rose 2.7 percent this month from a year earlier, government data showed.
TRANSPORTATION
Lyft sets US$72 share price
Lyft Inc late on Thursday set the price for its stock at US$72 per share, setting the stage for the ride-hailing pioneer’s hotly anticipated stock market debut. The price is at the high end of a revision Lyft made after high investor demand prompted the company to increase its initial goal of fetching US$62 to US$68 for each of the nearly 31 million shares sold in the initial public offering. The price sets Lyft’s market value at US$24 billion, which was expected to change quickly after the shares start trading on the NASDAQ yesterday.
ELECTRONICS
Kazuo Hirai to leave Sony
Sony Corp chairman Kazuo Hirai, who led a major and successful overhaul at the Japanese electronics giant, on Thursday announced that he would be leaving the firm after 35 years. Hirai would retire as chairman, but would continue to provide “counsel as requested by Sony’s management team,” the company said. The 58-year-old had already stepped down from the key CEO role in April last year.
AUTOMAKERS
Fiat Chrysler to lay off 1,500
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV is cutting about 1,500 jobs at a factory in Canada that is scaling back production due to slowing minivan sales. The Italian-American automaker plans to eliminate the third shift at its assembly plant in Windsor, Ontario, beginning Sept. 30, it said in an e-mailed statement. The company produces Chrysler Pacifica and Dodge Grand Caravan minivans at the facility, which employed more than 6,100 workers as of January.
AVIATION
WTO rules against the US
The WTO on Thursday said that the US had ignored a request to halt subsidized tax breaks to Boeing Co in its main planemaking state of Washington as a 15-year-old transatlantic trade row edges toward tit-for-tat sanctions. The EU said the WTO appeal ruling had vindicated its claims that Boeing continued to receive illegal subsidies, but the US said that only one measure, a Washington state tax break worth about US$100 million annually, had been found to break the rules.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six