MINING
Rio eyes carbon neutral
Rio Tinto PLC yesterday said that it wanted to be carbon neutral by 2050, as it booked a profit of US$10.4 billion last year, up 18 percent from 2018. The company said that it aims for a 15 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 from 2018 levels and “net-zero emissions from our operations by 2050.” The target would cover its own operations, but not emissions from upstream or downstream activities. The firm said that it would spend approximately US$1 billion on “climate-related” projects over the next five years.
BEVERAGES
Diageo warns of profit loss
Diageo PLC yesterday said that the spread of COVID-19 in China and the Asia-Pacific region could knock up to US$260 million off its profit this year as bars and restaurants remain closed. The London-based company, whose brands include Johnnie Walker, said that the virus could affect its organic net sales and organic operating profit by between £225 million and £325 million (US$291.7 million and 421.4 million) and £140 million to £200 million respectively. It said that these ranges exclude any impact of the virus on any other markets.
MANUFACTURING
Firms look outside China
More than one-quarter of businesses grappling with COVID-19 in Asia say that they are setting up or using supply chains that reduce their reliance on China, a survey released yesterday by the American Chamber of Commerce in Singapore showed. About 28 percent said that they were making such adjustments, and 14 percent said that they were shifting some or all of their supply chains outside of China, the poll conducted from Feb. 12 to Tuesday last week found. About two-thirds of members are US-based companies.
AIRLINES
Cathay staff take leave
More than 25,000 Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd (國泰航空) staff are taking unpaid leave amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Chief executive officer Augustus Tang (鄧健榮) said in an internal memo that challenges “remain acute,” and he thanked employees for their support. The Hong Kong-based airline this month asked its 33,000 workers to take three weeks off between Sunday and June 30. Most staff have taken the offer, but the acceptance rate is lower for pilots and cabin crew, a person familiar with the plan said.
INTERNET
Samsung site reveals info
Samsung Electronics Co on Tuesday said that a “technical error” caused its UK Web site to display other customers’ personal information. The company said that the error affected fewer than 150 customers on the site. People who logged on were able to see someone else’s name, phone number, address, e-mail address and previous orders. Samsung said that it did not leak card details.
TECHNOLOGY
Facebook buys game studio
Facebook Inc on Tuesday said that it has acquired development studio Sanzaru Games to join its Oculus gaming group. Sanzaru has produced a number of games, including Sonic the Hedgehog and Marvel Studios franchises, its Web site shows. The “vast majority” of Sanzaru’s nearly 100 employees would join Oculus, including the company’s founders, but would operate independently out of its existing offices, Facebook said. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
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
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],”