AUTOMOBILES
Toyota set to cut board size
Japan’s Toyota Motor is set to unveil a long-term strategic plan today that will sharply reduce the size of its board and focus on emerging market growth, a report said yesterday. The world’s largest automaker will aim to sharply cut the number of board members, a move that has stoked tensions within the Japanese firm’s management, the Wall Street Journal reported. The widely anticipated plan will provide Toyota with a blueprint for the decade and also give a glimpse of president Akio Toyoda’s management style and goals, the report said. While the automaker has declined to give details about the new strategy prior to its formal announcement, the WSJ cited sources as saying it plans to roughly halve the number of board members from the current 27.
JAPAN
Surplus shrinks 47.6 percent
Japan’s current account surplus shrank 47.6 percent from a year earlier in January as the trade balance fell into its first deficit in two years, the finance ministry said yesterday. The surplus in the current account — the broadest measure of trade with the rest of the world — stood at ￥461.9 billion (US$5.6 billion) in the month. Separate data released yesterday by the Bank of Japan showed bank lending continued to drop last month for the 15th straight month, a sign that many firms remain cautious about the economic outlook.
AVIATION
Air China signs Boeing deal
Boeing says it has signed a deal to sell five of its new 747-8 Intercontinental passenger jets to Air China. Boeing and Air China, the country’s flag carrier, didn’t say how much the deal was worth. At list prices it would be about US$1.6 billion but airlines typically get big discounts.Air China will use the planes to expand its international routes. The jets can carry 467 passengers and feature a new wing design and upgraded flight deck. The order was announced yesterday at the start of an air show in Hong Kong. It still needs Chinese government approval.
INTERNET
YouTube buys TV company
YouTube announced on Monday that it bought Internet television company Next New Networks to improve content for the Google-owned video-sharing Web site. The New York City-based startup was launched four years ago and is home to popular networks, such as “Barely Political” and “Indy Mogul,” which it billed as the “filmmaking network for the YouTube generation.” Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and YouTube stressed that it was not getting into the content creation business.
INTERNET
Skype to launch advertising
Internet phone company Skype says it is launching advertising on its service for the first time. The Luxembourg-based company, which is still 30 percent owned by online auction house eBay Inc, also on Monday announced its first advertisers: Groupon Inc, Nokia Corp, Comcast Corp’s Universal Pictures and Visa Inc. Skype said its platform, with 145 million users a month and 29 million at peak times, is attractive for brands to market their products. The platform will support large-format, rich interactive ads.
INTERNET
Google purchases UK site
Google bought British price comparison site BeatThatQuote.com for ￡37.7 million (US$61 million) on Monday. BeatThatQuote offers price comparisons on a wide range of products, from insurance to legal services and from utilities to retail items.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
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
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
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).
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