INSURANCE
Esure planning demerger
Britain’s Esure Group PLC said it is to list its price comparison Web site, Gocompare.com, separately on the London Stock Exchange, following a strategic review of its business. Esure, which provides insurance products to drivers, home owners, pet owners and tourists in Britain, said it expects the demerger to occur in the fourth quarter of this year. Costs related to the demerger are expected to be about ￡19 million (US$25 million), Esure said. Gocompare.com posted a profit of ￡23.3 million, it said.
AVIATION
Boeing lifts China forecast
Boeing Co lifted its forecast for aircraft demand in China in the next two decades, saying a rising middle class would spur leisure and business travel. The plane maker projects demand in China for 6,810 aircraft valued at US$1.025 trillion, making the nation the first trillion-dollar aviation market in its forecast, Boeing said in a statement distributed in Beijing yesterday. The aircraft maker last year predicted China would need 6,330 new planes worth US$950 billion in the next two decades. Boeing forecast that China would need 5,110 new single-aisle airplanes through 2035, or 75 percent of total new deliveries. The wide-body fleet would triple in size, requiring 1,560 new airplanes, it said. Boeing also forecast that 39,620 new airplanes valued at US$5.9 trillion would be delivered worldwide in the next 20 years.
PAYMENTS
Visa launches Kenya app
Visa Inc, the world’s largest payments network, has introduced a smartphone application to enable cashless transactions in Kenya, where the majority of wireless payments are being done through the nation’s biggest telecommunications company, Safaricom Ltd. The mVisa app would initially facilitate transactions for people with accounts in four banks, including KCB Group Ltd and Co-operative Bank of Kenya Ltd, Visa emerging markets senior vice president Uttam Nayak said. The company hopes to convert an estimated 84 million of Africa’s smartphone users who still pay by cash. Users of mVisa can make payments by scanning a unique merchant quick response code using their smartphones. About 1,500 merchants have up signed up, it said. Visa is in talks to roll out apps in Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda within two months, and in Nigeria by the end of the year, it said.
ELECTRONICS
Samsung shares rebound
Shares in South Korean giant Samsung Electronics rallied yesterday, recovering almost half the losses from a two-day collapse linked to its troubled Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, as traders welcomed news it had sold its printer unit for US$1.05 billion to US firm HP. The shares plunged more than 10 percent on Friday last week and Monday after it urged global consumers to stop using its flagship phone owing to a spate of exploding batteries. However, soon after the end of trade in Seoul on Monday, Samsung and HP announced the sale of the printer business. Samsung shares closed up 4.23 percent at 1.527 million won yesterday.
INSURANCE
Veolia wins British contract
Veolia Environnement SA, Europe’s biggest water company, has won a ￡1 billion contract to provide waste-to-energy services for more than 30 years to Hertfordshire in Britain The project is to generate as much as 33.5 megawatts of electricity from 350,000 tonnes of waste that cannot be reused, recycled or composted each year, the company said in a statement.
SEEKING CLARITY: Washington should not adopt measures that create uncertainties for ‘existing semiconductor investments,’ TSMC said referring to its US$165 billion in the US Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) told the US that any future tariffs on Taiwanese semiconductors could reduce demand for chips and derail its pledge to increase its investment in Arizona. “New import restrictions could jeopardize current US leadership in the competitive technology industry and create uncertainties for many committed semiconductor capital projects in the US, including TSMC Arizona’s significant investment plan in Phoenix,” the chipmaker wrote in a letter to the US Department of Commerce. TSMC issued the warning in response to a solicitation for comments by the department on a possible tariff on semiconductor imports by US President Donald Trump’s
The government has launched a three-pronged strategy to attract local and international talent, aiming to position Taiwan as a new global hub following Nvidia Corp’s announcement that it has chosen Taipei as the site of its Taiwan headquarters. Nvidia cofounder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday last week announced during his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei that the Nvidia Constellation, the company’s planned Taiwan headquarters, would be located in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei. Huang’s decision to establish a base in Taiwan is “primarily due to Taiwan’s talent pool and its strength in the semiconductor
Industrial production expanded 22.31 percent annually last month to 107.51, as increases in demand for high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence (AI) applications drove demand for locally-made chips and components. The manufacturing production index climbed 23.68 percent year-on-year to 108.37, marking the 14th consecutive month of increase, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. In the first four months of this year, industrial and manufacturing production indices expanded 14.31 percent and 15.22 percent year-on-year, ministry data showed. The growth momentum is to extend into this month, with the manufacturing production index expected to rise between 11 percent and 15.1 percent annually, Department of Statistics
An earnings report from semiconductor giant and artificial intelligence (AI) bellwether Nvidia Corp takes center stage for Wall Street this week, as stocks hit a speed bump of worries over US federal deficits driving up Treasury yields. US equities pulled back last week after a torrid rally, as investors turned their attention to tax and spending legislation poised to swell the US government’s US$36 trillion in debt. Long-dated US Treasury yields rose amid the fiscal worries, with the 30-year yield topping 5 percent and hitting its highest level since late 2023. Stocks were dealt another blow on Friday when US President Donald
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