AUTOMAKERS
Tesla cuts jobs in China
Tesla Motors Inc, the electric car manufacturer led by billionaire Elon Musk, said it is cutting jobs in China after a local newspaper reported the company will reduce staff by 30 percent. Tesla is to eliminate some positions as it makes structural changes to its business in China, Tesla spokesman Gary Tao said yesterday. Tao said he did not know how many jobs would be affected. The Chinese-language newspaper Economic Observer reported that Tesla would eliminate 180 of the 600 positions at its China unit because sales have not met expectations. “The purpose is to better respond to the Chinese market,” Tao said. “The team remains stable and strong.” The current personnel changes started at the beginning of the year, Tao said, declining to provide additional details. The Economic Observer said Tesla’s local sales department would cut half of its workforce, the most among all its departments, including marketing, public relations and administrative offices.
E-COMMERCE
China targets counterfeits
The Chinese regulator that accused Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) of peddling fake goods is seeking tighter e-commerce rules to curb the proliferation of counterfeits. Greater oversight is needed to protect consumers and create a fairer business environment on the Web, Chinese Minister of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) Zhang Mao (張茅) said. The spread of knock-off products posed a greater challenge online than in traditional retail, he added. Zhang’s remarks came less than two months after the SAIC issued a white paper accusing Alibaba’s online malls of accepting bribes and selling fake goods. The report was part of a wave of regulatory actions targeting major companies operating in China. The Chinese government projects that e-commerce transactions could reach 18 trillion yuan (US$2.9 trillion) this year — an 80 percent increase from 2013.
STOCKS
EU merger veto upheld
Deutsche Boerse AG lost an EU court challenge against the veto by EU regulators of its merger with NYSE Euronext, which would have created the world’s biggest exchange. The European Commission did not make any errors of law, the EU General Court in Luxembourg ruled yesterday. The commission, the EU regulator in Brussels, in February 2012 blocked the US$9.5 billion deal it said would have created a “near-monopoly” in European exchange-traded derivatives. The commission later cleared Intercontinental Exchange Inc’s bid for NYSE Euronext. Appealing a merger decision is a challenge to the commission’s legal reasoning and does not say anything about whether companies intend to resurrect a deal. The court’s decision can be appealed one last time.
TRADE
German surplus dips
Germany’s trade surplus narrowed in January as a drop in imports was outpaced by a decline in exports. The Federal Statistical Office yesterday said that exports fell by 2.1 percent in January to 96.3 billion euros (US$104.8 billion) when adjusted for seasonal and calendar variance. Imports dropped by 0.3 percent to 76.6 billion euros. The trade surplus narrowed to 19.7 billion euros in January, from 21.6 billion euros in December last year. Germany has drawn criticism for relying too much on exports and not importing enough to boost other European economies. However, it barely has a trade surplus with the rest of the 19-nation eurozone, while it has a large surplus with nations outside the EU.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
A former ASML Holding NV employee is facing a lawsuit in the Netherlands over suspected theft of trade secrets, Dutch public broadcaster NOS said, in the latest breach of the maker of advanced chip-manufacturing equipment. The 43-year-old Russian engineer, who is suspected of stealing documents such as microchip manuals from ASML, is expected to appear at a court in Rotterdam today, NOS reported on Friday. He is accused of multiple violations of the sanctions legislation and has been given a 20-year entry ban by the Dutch government, the report said. The Dutch company makes machines needed to produce high-end chips that power
As South Korea descends into political chaos, its equity market risks falling further behind major tech rival Taiwan, which is basking in the glory of a global artificial intelligence (AI) boom. A near-30 percent surge in Taiwan’s stock benchmark this year, set to be the best since 2009, has already helped spur a historic divergence between Asia’s two tech-dominated markets. The nation’s market capitalization now exceeds South Korea’s by about US$950 billion as the world’s AI frontrunners from Nvidia Corp and Microsoft Corp to OpenAI all increasingly turn to Taiwanese firms for supply. Looking ahead to next year, while both export-oriented economies
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