ELECTRONICS
Sony posts US$1.3bn loss
Sony Corp sank to a ￥138 billion (US$1.3 billion) quarterly loss due to expenses from exiting its personal computer business and is forecasting more red ink as it struggles to execute a long-promised turnaround. The company also reported a loss of ￥128.4 billion for the fiscal year through March this year, about three times its loss of ￥41.5 billion the previous year. It forecast a ￥50 billion loss for the year ending March next year. Sony’s red ink is flowing despite an improvement in sales, which rose 14 percent to ￥7.7 trillion for the fiscal year.
SOUTH KOREA
Unemployment inches up
The unemployment rate rose slightly last month, with the number of newly created jobs falling for the second consecutive month, government data showed yesterday. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate stood at 3.7 percent, compared to 3.5 percent in March, Statistics Korea said. However, the employment market for young job seekers remained tough. The jobless rate for those aged 15-29 stood at 10 percent last month, up from 9.9 in March and 8.4 percent a year earlier.
EUROPE
Inflation rises slightly
Inflation in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, accelerated slightly for the first time this year, official final data showed yesterday. The cost of living rose by 1.3 percent on a 12-month basis last month, up from 1 percent in March, the federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement. Inflation in France also edged up last month, French official data showed yesterday, as consumer prices rose by 0.7 percent on a 12-month basis, the statistics institute INSEE reported.
TELECOMS
Telstra completes CSL sale
Australian telecommunications giant Telstra yesterday announced it had completed the sale of Hong Kong-based mobile business CSL to HKT Ltd (香港電訊), with proceeds for its stake totaling US$1.99 billion. Telstra revealed in December last year it planned to offload the operation, saying while revenue was growing strongly and market share was up, dynamics in the Hong Kong market meant it was time to sell. The sale equates to US$1.99 billion for Telstra’s 76.4 percent stake.
BANKING
Citic chair fined for criticism
A Chinese brokerage has fined its chairman two months pay — nearly 1 million yuan (US$161,000) — after he publicly blasted the nation’s largest bank Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC, 中國工商銀行) over its profits, state media reported yesterday. The penalty will be levied on Citic Securities Co’s (中信證券) Wang Dongming (王東明), the 21st Century Business Herald newspaper said, basing its estimate on Wang’s salary last year of 5.83 million yuan. China’s “Big Four” banks, which include ICBC, have long been criticized for high charges, poor service and their reluctance to lend to private firms.
AUTOMAKERS
Firm aims for 20% of electric
Nissan’s joint venture firm in China has said it is aiming to secure one-fifth of the fledgling electric vehicle market, which it expects to boom as authorities get to grips with choking air pollution. Dongfeng Motor Co (東風) has ambitions of claiming a 20 percent segment share with its local Venucia brand, which will be rolled out in September, Jun Seki, who heads the joint venture, said on Tuesday.
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
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
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
NATURAL PARTNERS: Taiwan and Japan have complementary dominant supply chain positions, are geographically and culturally close, and have similar work ethics Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other related companies would add ￥11.2 trillion (US$78.31 billion) to Japan’s chipmaking hot spot Kumamoto Prefecture over the next decade, a local bank’s analysis said. Kyushu Financial Group, a lender based in Kumamoto’s capital, almost doubled its projection for the economic impact that the chip sector would bring to the region compared to its estimate a year earlier, a presentation on Thursday said. The bank said that 171 firms had made new investments since November 2021, up from 90 in an earlier analysis. TSMC’s Kumamoto location was once a sleepy farming area, but has undergone
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