MANUFACTURING
Chinese activity accelerates
Chinese factory activity accelerated last month, official data showed yesterday, the latest sign of improving momentum in the world’s second-largest economy, but analysts warned of headwinds later down the line. The official purchasing managers’ index, which gauges conditions at factories and mines, edged up to 51.8, slightly beating the 51.7 forecast in a Bloomberg News survey and up from the previous month’s 51.6. A figure above 50 indicates growth, while anything below points to contraction. The reading follows data showing a surge in imports last month, while economic growth came in slightly better than expected at the end of last year.
MACROECONOMICS
Japan’s output, prices rise
Japanese inflation and factory output picked up in February, while the unemployment rate dipped to a two-decade low, official data showed yesterday, a rare string of upbeat news for the world’s No. 3 economy. Core consumer prices, excluding volatile fresh food, rose 0.2 percent from a year earlier, driven by a rise in energy prices, the data showed. Meanwhile, February industrial production expanded by a stronger-than-expected 2 percent and the jobless rate fell to 2.8 percent from 3 percent the previous month, the lowest level since the mid-1990s. However, household spending remained weak, falling a worse-than-expected 3.8 percent from a year ago, data showed.
MACROECONOMICS
German unemployment dips
German unemployment unexpectedly dropped to a new record low last month, as Europe’s largest economy powered ahead. The jobless rate fell to 5.8 percent from 5.9 percent, and the number of people out of work slid by a seasonally adjusted 30,000 to 2.6 million, data from the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg showed yesterday. Economists in a Bloomberg survey forecast no change in the unemployment rate and a 10,000 decline in the number of people seeking work. Joblessness fell by about 18,000 in western Germany and by 12,000 in the eastern part of the country, the labor agency said.
INTEREST RATES
Mexico hikes rate to 6.5%
Mexico’s central bank has raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point to 6.5 percent, in a bid to contain rising inflation. The Bank of Mexico announced the hike from the previous 6.25 percent on Thursday, after the country recorded a 5.29 percent annual inflation rate in the first half of March. The bank’s inflation goal is 3 percent. The move came despite significant gains by the Mexican peso against the US dollar in recent months. “Despite the significant appreciation of the peso against the dollar ... uncertainty prevails in the international scene,” the bank said.
TELECOMS
Huawei sales grow 32%
Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday reported that sales for last year rose 32 percent from a year earlier, but profit only edged up 0.4 percent due to higher spending on research and marketing. Huawei said it earned 37 billion yuan (US$5.4 billion) on total revenue that rose 32 percent to 521.6 billion yuan. Sales by Huawei’s consumer group rose 44 percent to 179.8 billion yuan, and its enterprise and network businesses also had strong increases. That was offset by a 28 percent hike in spending on research and development and a 38.8 percent rise in marketing costs.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
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
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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