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World Business Quick Take

PHOTO: REUTERS

■ Beverages
Coke plans mid-calorie cola
Coke is launching a mid-calorie cola that promises half the sugar, carbohydrates and calories of its regular version. The Atlanta-based company said Monday that Coca-Cola C2 will debut first in Japan and then in the US this summer. The company has been researching the idea for a year. There will be subtle packaging differences to distinguish between the new drink and the company's flagship brand. In January, PepsiCo Inc said it, too, was looking at the idea of selling a mid-calorie cola. At the time, spokesman Dave DeCecco said the Purchase, New York-based company had applied for a patent for Pepsi LS, which some have speculated stands for low sugar. The company later named its mid-calorie cola Pepsi Edge and said it would debut in the US this summer, roughly the same time as Coke's version, DeCecco said Monday.

■ Computer chips
Intel considers HK factory
Intel Corp, the world's largest maker of computer chips, said it may set up a packaging factory in Hong Kong to get closer to its customers in China. Intel denied a South China Morning Post report that the company will open an assembly plant in Hong Kong next year to install Intel processing units to motherboards made in China. The factory being considered would only pack finished processors and cooling devices into boxes for shipment to customers, said Colleen Rubart, Intel's spokeswoman for Asia Pacific.

■ Semiconductors
Equipment orders rise 70%
North American companies that sell equipment used to build semiconductors had a gain in orders from February to last month, the eighth-straight monthly increase, and a 70 percent gain from a year earlier, Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International said. The book-to-bill ratio for North American chip-tool makers was 1.10 last month, indicating that US$110 in orders were received for every US$100 in sales, the San Jose, California-based trade group said in a statement. The ratio is considered a measure of industry health and was revised to 1.15 in February, compared with 1.19 in January. Above 1 indicates a growing market. The three-month average of worldwide bookings last month rose to US$1.321 billion from US$1.316 billion in February.

■ Internet auctions
Buffet sells tickets on eBay
Warren Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, has sold hundreds of tickets to the company's annual meeting in an effort to foil Internet auctions for the passes. Buffett listed tickets to the event, attended by more than 10,000 shareholders and their guests last year, on eBay Inc's Web site late Friday at US$5 a pair after seeing sellers scalp them for as much as US$58 each. As of 4:30pm Monday, he had sold 352. The annual gathering in Omaha, Nebraska is a magnet for admirers of Buffett, 73, who has become the world's second-richest man by spotting undervalued assets.

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