AUTOMAKERS
US sales plummet
Automotive sales in the US slowed significantly last month, compounding several months of declines and suggesting the industry’s record sales streak might be behind it. The big three US automakers on Tuesday all reported that sales fell last month compared with the same period last year. Industrywide, automakers sold 8.3 percent fewer cars last month compared with March, and 4.7 percent fewer year-on-year, according to Autodata. It was the fourth consecutive month of falling sales for the industry. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales fell to 16.88 million units, from 17.4 million in the same period last year when automotive sales were headed for another record year, according to Autodata.
AUTOMAKERS
VW’s Q1 profit surges 44%
Volkswagen AG (VW) said its first-quarter profit surged 44 percent as the company continued to work past a scandal over its diesel cars that were rigged to cheat on emissions tests. Costs and fines from the scandal that emerged in September 2015 have been a drain on VW’s large cash pile since, but the firm’s chief financial officer yesterday said that the company was solid enough to handle added costs this year. VW also reaffirmed its profit goal for the full year. After-tax profit rose to 3.4 billion euros (US$3.71 billion), up from 2.4 billion euros in the same period last year. The results beat analyst estimates of 3.1 billion euros, compiled by financial information provider FactSet.
BANKING
BNP says Q1 results ‘solid’
French bank BNP Paribas SA yesterday said it got off to a good start this year, notching up “solid” results in the first quarter on the strength of the financial market. The company said in a statement its net profit rose by 4.4 percent to 1.89 billion euros in the January-to-March period, beating analysts’ expectations of a figure of about 1.6 billion euros. Revenues advanced by 4.2 percent to 11.3 billion euros, also outpacing expectations.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft bets on students
Microsoft Corp is taking aim at Google as it introduces a Surface device for students and a slimmed down Windows for the classroom. The new Surface Laptop is the first Surface device without a detachable keyboard. Microsoft said the new laptop has up to 14.5 hours of battery life, compared with 12 hours for Apple Inc’s MacBook Air. The Surface Laptop is to come out on June 15. The laptop runs Windows 10 S, a streamlined version of the ubiquitous operating system. Microsoft said new education PCs running Windows 10 S would start at US$189, a little more expensive than the cheapest Chromebooks. The Surface Laptop is to start at US$999, the same as the MacBook Air.
LAWSUIT
Malaysian sues over airbag
A Malaysian man has sued Honda Motor Co and Takata Corp for wrongful death after his wife was killed in a car accident that left shrapnel from a defective airbag part lodged in her skull. Nida Fatin Mat Asis, a 29-year-old doctor, was driving the Honda City that crashed in Malaysia’s eastern Sabah State on April 16 last year. An autopsy found shrapnel from a Takata airbag inflator in the base of her skull. The lawsuit was filed in a US District court in Michigan on Monday.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of