MALAYSIA
Incentives to be raised
The government yesterday said that it would expand tax incentives for companies that use the country as a base for conducting their regional or global business. Effective this year, companies eligible for the government’s Principal Hub incentive would be subjected to a 10 percent tax rate for their operations instead of the wider corporate tax rate of 24 percent.
JAPAN
Household spending up 1%
Households in August increased spending for a ninth month without splurging ahead of a sales tax hike that took effect this month, suggesting the boom-and-bust consumption pattern that accompanied previous tax increases might not materialize this time. Household spending rose 1 percent from a year earlier, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications data showed yesterday, matching the median forecast of economists. Separate figures showed that wages fell for a seventh month this year, offering little hope that higher pay might fuel consumption over the coming months.
RETAIL
Two firms drop e-cigarettes
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc and Kroger Co are to stop selling electronic cigarettes, making them the latest retailers to take action in the wake of the outbreak of vaping-related lung injuries in the US. “We have made the decision to stop selling e-cigarette products at our stores nationwide,” a Walgreens spokesman said on Monday. The drugstore chain, which operates thousands of locations around the country, would still sell regular cigarettes. Kroger said earlier that it too would halt the sale of all electronic nicotine-delivery products, citing mounting health questions.
TELECOMS
Cellnex buying Arqiva towers
Cellnex Telecom SA is buying Arqiva’s UK telecommunication towers for £2 billion (US$2.5 billion) and selling new shares to help the fast-growing Spanish infrastructure company pursue more deals. Cellnex would acquire 7,400 mobile towers that privately held Arqiva is carving out from its broadcasting mast business. The deal includes commercial rights over a further 900 tower sites, and concessions to use London street infrastructure as locations for mobile equipment, Cellnex said in a statement.
COSMETICS
Shiseido agrees to buy firm
Shiseido Co agreed to buy skincare brand Drunk Elephant Holdings LLC for US$845 million as the Japanese beauty company seeks to appeal to younger consumers in the US. The deal for Drunk Elephant would not have a significant effect on full-year earnings, Shiseido said in a statement yesterday. It would be financed with a combination of cash and credit, and is expected to close by the end of the year, it said.
AUDIO
B&O fires chief executive
Bang & Olufsen A/S (B&O) replaced its chief executive officer as the Danish maker of luxury audio systems grew impatient with the slow pace of the company’s turnaround. B&O named Kristian Tear, 55, as its new chief executive officer with immediate effect. He replaces Henrik Clausen, who would be “at the company’s disposal in the short term,” according to a statement. The company earlier this month reported a second consecutive quarterly loss, missing analyst estimates, as sales declined 30 percent.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to