AUTOMAKERS
Minister cautious on merger
French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire yesterday said there was no need to rush the US$35 billion merger talks between automakers Renault SA and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, but reiterated that he wanted the deal to go ahead. “We should take our time to make sure that things are done well,” Le Maire told BFM TV. The government wanted guarantees over the new entity’s jobs, having a headquarter in Paris and corporate governance, he added.
INDIA
Services expansion slow
The services sector expanded at its slowest pace in a year last month, adding to doubts about the economy’s ability to quickly reverse a slowdown. The seasonally adjusted Nikkei India Services Index fell to 50.2, its weakest level in 12 months. The reading is within earshot of the 50 threshold, which is the dividing line between expansion and contraction. The reading signals slowing activity in the nation’s dominant services sector and is likely to add to pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates to support the economy.
AUTOMOBILES
UK registrations drop
UK new registrations dropped 4.6 percent last month to 183,274 vehicles due to uncertainty over diesel policy and the government’s decision to cut incentives for plug-in hybrid vehicles, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said yesterday. “Confusing policy messages and changes to incentives continue to affect consumer and business confidence, causing drivers to keep hold of their older, more polluting vehicles for longer,” group CEO Mike Hawes said.
ENERGY
CTG eyeing EDP Brazil
China Three Gorges Corp (CTG, 中國三峽集團) is weighing a deal to gain control of EDP-Energias de Portugal SA’s Brazilian business, people with knowledge of the matter said. State-owned CTG is considering merging its own Brazilian assets with EDP’s operations in the South American country, which are run through publicly traded EDP-Energias do Brasil SA, the people said. CTG might seek a majority stake in the combined entity, the people said.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford China fined
China has fined Ford Motor Co’s main joint venture in the country for antitrust breaches. Changan Ford Automobile Co (長安福特汽車) was fined 162.8 million yuan (US$23.6 million) for restricting retailers’ sale prices in Chongqing since 2013, the State Administration for Market Regulation said in a statement on its Web site. The amount of the fine is equivalent to 4 percent of Changan Ford’s annual sales in Chongqing. Ford said in a statement that it respects China’s decision.
SOUTH AFRICA
Stabilizing prices a priority
The primary mandate of the central bank is price stability, South African Reserve Bank Governor Lesetja Kganyago said yesterday after the South African Communist Party said the bank’s mandate should be expanded to explicitly include job creation. The divergent statements echoed a heated argument among senior officials over whether its mandate should be expanded. “The constitution outlines the primary mandate of the Reserve Bank, being to protect the value of the currency in the interests of balanced and sustainable growth,” Kganyago said. “The independence and competence of the Reserve Bank all come from the constitution.”
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by