AUTOMOTIVE
Mazda to recall cars
Japanese automaker Mazda Motor said yesterday it would recall more than 72,000 cars at home and overseas because of a fuel pump defect that may cause their engines to stall. In Japan, Mazda will recall a total of 28,238 units of its Premacy and Biante models produced from June last year to April this year, a company spokesman said. It will exchange for free fuel pump components that may corrode because of moisture being accidentally trapped inside the pump during air tightness inspections in the factory. The company will also recall about 44,000 Premacy models overseas, mostly in North America, Europe and China, where it is known as the Mazda 5, because of the same problem, the spokesman said.
MEDIA
Branson to unveil ‘Project’
British tycoon Richard Branson will unveil on Tuesday a digital magazine tailored for viewing on Apple’s popular iPad tablet computers, according to press conference invitations. Word of Branson’s plans to publish Project for delivery on iPads came shortly after Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch hinted that his News Corp empire would soon publish a digital newspaper for the hot Apple gadgets. Branson said in invitations to the press that Project’s themes would include entertainment, travel, business, design and international culture.
CHINA
Current account surplus up
China’s current account surplus more than doubled in the third quarter of this year from the same period last year, propelled by strong demand for Chinese-made products, the State Administration for Foreign Exchange said on its Web site yesterday. The current account surplus rose 103 percent to US$102.3 billion from July to September, it said. For the first nine months, the current account surplus expanded 30 percent year-on-year to US$204 billion, the data showed. Net inflow of direct investment reached US$23 billion compared with US$21 billion in the second quarter.
PHILIPPINES
Third-quarter growth slows
Third-quarter economic growth in the Philippines slowed to 6.5 percent as weakness in agriculture and other industries offset strong consumer spending. The government said yesterday that the services sector remained the key source of domestic growth, while industry failed to sustain its recovery from the first half. Still, growth was a lot more robust than the 0.2 percent recorded in the same period last year when the economy was grappling with a global recession, but significantly slower than the previous quarter’s revised expansion of 8.2 percent. Economic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga told reporters that growth would continue to moderate, but should exceed the official target of 5 to 6 percent for this year.
AUTOMOTIVE
Ford Motor cuts debt
Detroit-based Ford Motor Co is cutting its debt by US$1.9 billion to strengthen its balance sheet and get itself rated investment grade again. In Ford’s tender offer to reduce its automotive operations debt, holders of US$2.55 billion in senior convertible notes due in 2016 and 2036 accepted cash and company stock for debt. That reduces Ford’s annual interest expense by about US$180 million, it said on Wednesday. Ford expects a solid profit this year and has cut its operations debt by about US$12.8 billion this year, reducing annual interest expense by nearly US$1 billion.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
STILL HOPEFUL: Delayed payment of NT$5.35 billion from an Indian server client sent its earnings plunging last year, but the firm expects a gradual pickup ahead Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), the world’s No. 5 PC vendor, yesterday reported an 87 percent slump in net profit for last year, dragged by a massive overdue payment from an Indian cloud service provider. The Indian customer has delayed payment totaling NT$5.35 billion (US$162.7 million), Asustek chief financial officer Nick Wu (吳長榮) told an online earnings conference. Asustek shipped servers to India between April and June last year. The customer told Asustek that it is launching multiple fundraising projects and expected to repay the debt in the short term, Wu said. The Indian customer accounted for less than 10 percent to Asustek’s
‘DECENT RESULTS’: The company said it is confident thanks to an improving world economy and uptakes in new wireless and AI technologies, despite US uncertainty Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it plans to build a new server manufacturing factory in the US this year to address US President Donald Trump’s new tariff policy. That would be the second server production base for Pegatron in addition to the existing facilities in Taoyuan, the iPhone assembler said. Servers are one of the new businesses Pegatron has explored in recent years to develop a more balanced product lineup. “We aim to provide our services from a location in the vicinity of our customers,” Pegatron president and chief executive officer Gary Cheng (鄭光治) told an online earnings conference yesterday. “We
LEAK SOURCE? There would be concern over the possibility of tech leaks if TSMC were to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s factories, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday stayed mum after a report said that the chipmaker has pitched chip designers Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and Broadcom Inc about taking a stake in a joint venture to operate Intel Corp’s factories. Industry sources told the Central News Agency (CNA) that the possibility of TSMC proposing to operate Intel’s wafer fabs is low, as the Taiwanese chipmaker has always focused on its core business. There is also concern over possible technology leaks if TSMC were to form a joint venture to operate Intel’s factories, Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺)
RSS