JAPAN
Index flags slump risk
The government cut its formula-based assessment of the economy to indicate that economic conditions were worsening in August, an outcome signaling a higher risk that the nation could be entering a recession. The coincident economic index fell 0.4 point to 99.3 in August, the Cabinet Office reported yesterday, compared with an estimate of 99.4 by economists. The leading economic index dropped 2 points to a 10-year low of 91.7, compared with an estimate of 91.8 by economists.
GERMANY
Orders contract in August
Factory orders dropped for the second consecutive month in August — led by lower domestic demand, the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy said yesterday. Orders were 0.6 percent lower compared with the previous month, when they fell 2.1 percent, it said. Domestic orders dropped 2.6 percent, while foreign demand rose 0.9 percent. Orders from other countries in the eurozone rose 1.5 percent and those from elsewhere edged up 0.4 percent.
HOTELS
Oyo to raise US$1.5bn
Oyo Hotels and Homes is raising US$1.5 billion from founder Ritesh Agarwal, Softbank Group Corp and other investors, as the India lodging start-up expands into foreign markets, such as the US and Europe. Agarwal, 25, plans to spend US$700 million to buy new shares in the company as part of a previously reported US$2 billion plan to triple his ownership stake. Existing investors SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Sequoia India would contribute the rest of the current round.
REAL ESTATE
PropertyGuru to list
PropertyGuru Pte, a provider of online real-estate classifieds based in Singapore, plans to raise as much as A$380.2 million (US$257 million) and list on the Australian stock exchange. The shares’ indicative price range is between A$3.70 and A$4.50, which would give it a market capitalization at the upper end of about A$1.36 billion, the company’s prospectus showed yesterday. A book build to determine the final price is to be held later this month and trading is expected to start on Oct. 25.
LIGHTING
Osram falls on failed bid
Osram Licht AG fell the most in two months after a 4 billion euro (US$4.4 billion) offer by Austrian suitor AMS AG failed to attract enough support from investors, and a pair of rival bidders are still considering whether to make a new bid. The shares dropped as much as 4.5 percent in early trading yesterday. Osram investors had tendered 51.6 percent of their shares to AMS by a deadline last week, falling short of a 62.5 percent threshold. The Apple Inc supplier has vowed to keep pursuing an acquisition, while private equity suitors Bain Capital and Advent International are inspecting the company’s books, Osram said on Friday.
ELECTRONICS
Samsung ends China work
Samsung Electronics Co on Friday said it has ended the production of smartphones in its last factory in China. Production at the Huizhou, Guangdong Province, factory ended last month, it said in an e-mail. Samsung’s market share in China has dwindled to near insignificance, as competitors like Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Xiaomi Corp (小米) got the upper hand. The South Korean company has moved a large share of its smartphone production to Vietnam and had shuttered a factory in Tianjin, China, last year.
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
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San
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