JAPAN
Unemployment rate falls
Japan’s unemployment rate last month fell to 4.6 percent, the first decline in two months, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said yesterday. It was down 0.3 percentage point from January and better than Kyodo news agency’s forecast of 4.9 percent. The number of jobless people stood at 3 million last month, down 240,000 from a year earlier, the ministry said.
SOUTH KOREA
Current account surplus up
South Korea’s current account surplus rose sharply last month from the previous month as spending on overseas travel fell while exports remained robust, the Bank of Korea said yesterday. The surplus was US$1.18 billion last month compared with a revised US$154.7 million a month earlier, the central bank said. The account — the broadest measure of cross-border trade — stayed in surplus for the 12th straight month last month thanks to strong exports.
GERMANY
Consumer confidence weak
German consumer sentiment has been hit by fears of inflation and an unsettled international environment and the GfK confidence index is set to mark its first fall in 10 months, a GfK statement said yesterday. The institute’s survey of about 2,000 households early this month resulted in an indexed 5.9 points for April, down from 6.0 points, it said. GfK uses its findings to publish an estimation for the following month. The poll was carried out before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan.
TELECOMS
Sprint opposes AT&T plans
Sprint Nextel is urging government officials to block AT&T Inc’s planned acquisition of T-Mobile USA from Germany’s Deutsche Telekom AG. Sprint, the third-largest US wireless carrier, said the proposed US$39 billion cash-and-stock deal would create a duopoly market for US wireless services dominated by AT&T and Verizon Wireless. “On behalf of our customers, our industry and our country, Sprint will fight this attempt by AT&T to undo the progress of the past 25 years and create a new Ma Bell duopoly,” Sprint said in a statement on Monday. The US Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission could take a year or longer to review the proposed transaction.
CONGLOMERATES
Siemens plans Osram sale
Siemens AG plans to sell shares in its Osram lighting unit later this year and aims to remain a minority investor, it said in a release on Monday. Siemens will also create a fourth division that focuses on infrastructure and cities, bundling products such as trains, airport services, power grids and building technologies. “This step will give Osram full entrepreneurial freedom to secure and further expand its leading position in a lighting market being swept by technological change,” the statement said. The Munich-based company will remain a “long-term anchor shareholder” in the unit, it said.
INTERNET
Dorsey back in management
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey announced on Monday that he was returning to the high-flying company as executive chairman to head its product team. Dorsey, who founded Twitter in March 2006 with Biz Stone and Evan Williams, resigned as Twitter’s chief executive in 2008. He remained chairman of the San Francisco-based microblogging service, but did not take an active role in daily operations.
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
Chinese entrepreneur Frank Gao used to spend long hours running his social media accounts but now outsources the chore to artificial intelligence (AI) agent tool OpenClaw, which is taking China by storm despite official warnings over cybersecurity. OpenClaw, created in November by an Austrian coder, differs from bots such as ChatGPT because it can execute real-life tasks such as sending e-mails, organizing files or even booking flight tickets. “Since January, I’ve spent hours on the lobster every day,” Gao said in an interview, referring to OpenClaw’s red crustacean mascot. “We’re family.” After downloading OpenClaw, users connect it to artificial intelligence models of their
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
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