SOFTWARE
Motorola buys Zecter
Motorola Mobility Inc, the smartphone maker being spun off from Motorola Inc, bought software company Zecter Inc to help consumers transfer music more easily between its handsets and other devices. Zecter’s ZumoCast and ZumoDrive software let users move content from phones to computers and tablet devices, Motorola Mobility said yesterday in a statement. The price wasn’t disclosed. Motorola Mobility, which begins trading as a separate company next month, is trying to distinguish itself from Samsung Electronics Co and HTC Corp, which also build phones based on Google Inc’s Android software.
BANKING
New rescue fund planned
Several European countries are working on a permanent euro rescue mechanism that would include the creation of a new and independent funding institution, a press report said yesterday. Germany is considering a “European stability, growth and investment fund,” according to a government paper seen by the Sueddeutsche Zeitung daily. The new body would exist side-by-side with the European Central Bank, would benefit from the same independence and would be tasked with helping financially distressed eurozone countries in exchange for strict conditions. Governments which needed to borrow from the fund would have to put up solid collateral such as gold reserves or private bonds, the newspaper said.
ECONOMY
French spending rises
French consumer spending on manufactured goods rose last month, matching the highest in more than seven years, as the pending expiration of a government auto subsidy spurred car sales. Spending gained 2.8 percent from October, when it declined a revised 0.6 percent, national statistics office Insee said in a statement from Paris yesterday. Economists predicted a 0.9 percent increase, the median of 11 forecasts gathered by Bloomberg showed. Spending rose 1.5 percent from a year ago. The aid for new car purchases, instituted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy in December 2008 as the nation plunged into recession, will be withdrawn at the end of this month. That led to a 14.9 percent increase in auto-related purchases last month
AGRICULTURE
Soybeans hit two-year high
Soybeans advanced to the highest level in more than two years on concern that dry weather in South America could threaten crops in Brazil and Argentina amid rising global demand, led by China. Corn and wheat also gained. The March-delivery contract gained as much as 0.7 percent to US13.495 a bushel in Chicago, the highest level since August 2008, before trading at US$13.4725 at 3:28pm in Singapore. Prices have risen 28 percent this year on record Chinese demand. Dry weather caused by a La Nina event, which has already hurt crops, will return to Argentina from Saturday and persist through next week, according to a report from AccuWeather.com.
INDIA
New Delhi cools off onions
The government took emergency measures to cool onion prices after excess rainfall damaged crops and contributed to an acceleration in food inflation to a six-week high. An index measuring wholesale prices of agricultural products including lentils, rice and vegetables compiled by the commerce ministry rose 12.13 percent in the week ended on Dec. 11 from a year earlier, a trade ministry report said yesterday. The index gained 9.46 percent the previous week.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
FAULTs BELOW: Asia is particularly susceptible to anything unfortunate happening to the AI industry, with tech companies hugely responsible for its market strength The sudden slump in Asia’s technology shares last week has jolted investors, serving as a stark reminder that the world-beating rally in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductor stocks might be nearing a short-term crest. The region’s sharpest decline since April — triggered by a tech-led sell-off on Wall Street — has refocused attention on cracks beneath the surface: the rally’s narrow breadth, heavy reliance on retail traders, and growing uncertainty around the timing of US Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts. Last week’s “sell-off is a reminder that Asia’s market structure is just more vulnerable,” Saxo Markets chief investment strategist Charu Chanana said in
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