INFLATION
China inflation rises to 1.5%
China’s consumer inflation rebounded marginally to 1.5 percent year-on-year last month, the government said yesterday, as slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy keeps a lid on prices. The rise in the consumer price index released by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics marked an increase from a five-year low of 1.4 percent in November of last year. For the entirety of last year, consumer inflation was 2 percent, down from 2.6 percent in 2013 and well below the government’s target of about 3.5 percent.
AUTOMAKERS
Brazil car output falls 15.3%
Car production slumped 15.3 percent in Brazil last year, in the sector’s worst showing in five years, leading to 12,400 job losses, national automobile association Anfavea said on Thursday. Brazil produced 3.15 million vehicles last year, down 560,000 from 2013 for the lowest tally since 2009, Anfavea chairman Luiz Moan Yabiku said. Sales slid last year, down 7.5 percent to 3.5 million units, after a fourth straight year of pallid economic growth, Brazil’s auto dealership association Fenabrave announced on Tuesday.
INTERNET
Google search share dips
Google Inc saw its share of the US Internet search market slip to its lowest ever mark, while Yahoo Inc notched its highest share in five years, an independent analytics firm said on Thursday. Last month, Google handled 75.2 percent of US online search referrals, down from 79.3 percent a year earlier. However, the company remains the leader in the US search market by a wide margin, ahead of Microsoft Corp’s Bing at 12.5 percent and Yahoo at 10.4 percent. Firefox, which is open-source and free, was reported by industry trackers to be the third-most used Web browser in the world, behind Google’s Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
RETAIL
Macy’s cutting 1,300 jobs
US department store giant Macy’s said on Thursday it would shut 14 stores, cutting more than 1,300 jobs, in a restructuring to boost its focus on the boom in online shopping. The affected stores, a small fraction of the company’s roughly 790 stores across the country, will be closed within several months, Macy’s said in a statement after the markets closed. Macy’s also announced it would open two new stores in California.
SHIPPING
Giant ship to enter service
One of the world’s largest ships, capable of lifting oil rigs five times heavier than the Eiffel Tower, arrived in Rotterdam on Thursday for finishing touches before entering service. The nearly 400m long Pieter Schelte Heerema was built by Daewoo and will have floating housing units installed around it in Rotterdam so workers can complete the construction job. Once the work and sea tests are completed, the ship’s first task will be removing the Yme oil platform off the Norwegian coast.
AIRCRAFT
Boeing hits new sales high
Boeing Co on Tuesday reported that last year was a banner year for aircraft sales, breaking records for new orders and deliveries. The company said it booked 1,432 net orders for commercial aircraft last year, with a list price value of US$232.7 billion, topping its 2007 previous record. The company’s backlog of unfilled orders climbed to 5,789, also an all-time high.
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
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