■ Retail
Wal-Mart executive resigns
A high-profile Wal-Mart Stores Inc board member resigned on Friday after an internal probe turned up evidence of financial improprieties of up to US$500,000. Three Wal-Mart employees, including a company officer, also lost their jobs. The world's largest retailer said it asked Thomas Coughlin, who is also a former president and CEO of the company's stores division, to step down because of "a disagreement" over the results of the probe, which involves between US$100,000 and US$500,000, and his "response to questions concerning his knowledge of certain transactions," according to a regulatory filing.
■ Entertainment
New CEO stirs up Disney
Nearly two weeks after being named Disney's new chief executive, Robert Iger has made his first significant move to change the way decisions are made at the media conglomerate. The Walt Disney Co said on Friday it is restructuring its corporate Strategic Planning unit to give each of the company's businesses more authority to make acquisitions and start new ventures. Peter Murphy, Disney's chief strategic officer, will leave that role and become a senior adviser to Iger, the company said. Iger, who will take over from Michael Eisner in October, has said he wants to foster a more entrepreneurial atmosphere at the company while holding the heads of Disney's film studio, media networks, consumer products and theme parks divisions more accountable.
■ Electronics
ATI profits rise 20% in Q2
ATI Technologies Inc, the world's No. 2 computer-graphics chipmaker, said second-quarter profit rose 20 percent as computer and cell-phone makers used more of its chips that display games and pictures. Net income advanced to US$57.2 million, or US$0.22 a share, from US$47.6 million, or US$0.19, a year earlier. Sales in the quarter ended Feb. 28 rose 31 percent to US$608.2 million, the Markham, Ontario-based company said in a statement. Profit rose as sales of higher-margin chips for televisions and mobile phones increased 41 percent, Chief Financial Officer Patrick Crowley said in an interview. Semiconductors for personal computers, which make up the rest of ATI's business, gained 13 percent to US$550 million, he said. The consumer unit's rapid growth is expected to slow this quarter and resume in the fourth period.
■ Macroeconomics
Japan's retail prices fall
Consumer prices in Japan fell 0.4 percent last month from the same month a year earlier, their steepest drop since June 2003 and the latest sign that the country remains mired in a nearly seven-year battle with deflation. Steep declines in telephone rates and a fall in the price of rice drove overall prices lower in February, according to Japan's statistics bureau. Japanese consumer prices have been flat or have fallen every month but one since April 1998, an unprecedented streak that has sapped some of the country's economic strength. Friday's new drop in prices made it unlikely that the Bank of Japan would abandon its ultra-easy monetary policy. For nearly four years, the central bank has been trying to kindle growth and a bit of inflation by keeping short-term interest rates near zero and pumping cash into the money markets. The central bank has pledged to maintain this policy until there are convincing signs that prices are headed higher.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
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