■ Telecom
HK drops PCCW
Richard Li's PCCW Ltd, Hong Kong's biggest phone company, will be dropped from the Hang Seng Hong Kong Large-cap Index, after its market capitalization fell more than a fifth in the first half of the year. PCCW will be replaced by Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, Asia's sixth-largest carrier by sales, which will join the Mid-cap Index from Sept 8, index complier HSI Services Ltd said in a press release. PCCW will remain in the benchmark Hang Seng Index. The decision comes because PCCW failed to meet the required market size in a half-yearly review done by HSI Services, said general manager Vincent Kwan. PCCW had HK$22.6 billion (US$2.9 billion) market capitalization as of last Friday, 60 percent of Cathay Pacific's market value.
■ Stock markets
Tokyo requires disclosures
Tokyo Stock Exchange will require its listed companies to disclose details about their quarterly earnings results in fiscal year 2004, Nikkei English News reported, without citing anyone. The exchange is requiring listed companies to provide details of sales and other data every quarter starting this fiscal year, Nikkei said. It has decided to require the businesses to disclose more detailed items for the fiscal year ending March 31, including operating profits, pretax profits and net profits. Companies that go public on April 1 or later will have to release data under the new guidelines, although the exchange will give currently listed companies a three-year grace period before making the new requirements mandatory, the news service reported.
■ Internet
Pirates won't be named
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College don't have to immediately identify students accused of illegally copying music over the Internet, a federal judge ruled. The ruling by US District Judge Joseph Tauro delays the Recording Industry Association of America's plan to sue individual users of file-sharing programs that distribute copyrighted music. The organization has filed more than 871 subpoenas in US District Court in Washington, seeking data from colleges and Internet-service providers about such users. Tauro issued a one-line ruling yesterday that the subpoenas weren't properly served in Massachusetts and granted the schools' motion set them aside. MIT and Boston College had said that they would comply with the subpoenas when they are filed in Massachusetts, not Washington.
■ Automobiles
Kia's workers will strike
Workers at Kia Motors Corp, South Korea's second-largest automaker by sales, plan a partial strike starting next week for more wages and shorter working hours, Yonhap News said, citing a union official it didn't identify. The plant will be idle for two hours each during the day and night shifts tomorrow and Tuesday, Yonhap said. On Wednesday and Thursday, the hours will double to four hours each, it said. Union workers will also refuse to work overtime, Yonhap said. Kia workers have proposed the introduction of a 40-hour workweek starting Sept. 1, with terms including a 5 percent increase in productivity. The strikes also seek an 11 percent wage increase and other conditions. The workers held walkouts for three days in July, causing the automaker to lose production of 5,800 units of its vehicles worth about 87 billion won (US$73 million).
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
RSS