AUTOMAKERS
Nissan dives on scandal
Nissan Motor Co’s passenger car sales in Japan plummeted more than 55 percent last month, data showed yesterday, after the company suspended all domestic production due to an inspection scandal. Sales of Nissan-brand passenger cars stood at 10,134 vehicles, down by 55.2 percentage points from a year earlier, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said. The drop comes after Nissan admitted it had failed to meet domestic rules on final vehicle inspections and recalled about 1.2 million vehicles produced and sold in Japan for reinspection. The dramatic fall in Nissan cars compares with a more modest decline of 4.4 percentage points in overall sales in the Japanese market in the month.
AUSTRALIA
Housing boom over: UBS
The housing boom that has seen the nation’s home prices more than double since the turn of the century is “officially over,” after data showed prices are flatlining, UBS Group AG said. National house prices were unchanged last month from September, while annual growth has slowed to 7 percent from more than 10 percent as recently as July, CoreLogic Inc data released yesterday showed. The cooling housing market might encourage the Reserve Bank of Australia to keep interest rates at a record low. A rate hike would be undesirable, as it would put further downward pressure on housing prices, AMP Capital Investors Ltd senior economist Diana Mousina said.
TECHNOLOGY
Grab wallet for Singapore
Grab, Southeast Asia’s largest ride-hailing app, is launching a new digital wallet service in Singapore as it stakes a claim to the region’s burgeoning mobile payments sector. Starting yesterday, Grab’s 4 million users in the city-state could scan a quick response, or QR, code to pay for dishes at hawker stands. Grab plans to increase the number of small merchants accepting GrabPay from 25 to 1,000 by the end of next month. Grab, which is bigger than Uber Technologies Inc in the region, wants to build on its success in ride-hailing by adding new services in the more lucrative payments market. The company has expanded from taxi booking to private vehicles, rental cars and shuttle bus services. The five-year-old start-up plans to roll out mobile wallet services across the region next year.
NIGERIA
Crop park to be established
The government plans to establish a US$1 billion crop-processing park with Turkish investors in Niger State as part of efforts to improve value and boost agricultural exports, according to the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council. The Badeggi Crop Processing Zone is expected process more than 750,000 tonnes of crops, including rice, maize, yam, cassava, groundnuts and peas annually, the council said. The government plans to set up 15 similar crop zones nationwide.
MACAU
Casino revenue soars
Casino revenue last month climbed to the highest in three years as many high-stake bettors and recreational players visited the territory after China’s Golden Week holiday. Gross gaming receipts rose 22.1 percent to 26.6 billion patacas (US$3.3 billion), according to data released yesterday by the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau. That compares with the median estimate for a 14.5 percent increase in a Bloomberg survey of nine analysts. The gains in casino revenue is the highest since October 2014.
Real estate agent and property developer JSL Construction & Development Co (愛山林) led the average compensation rankings among companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) finished 14th. JSL Construction paid its employees total average compensation of NT$4.78 million (US$159,701), down 13.5 percent from a year earlier, but still ahead of the most profitable listed tech giants, including TSMC, TWSE data showed. Last year, the average compensation (which includes salary, overtime, bonuses and allowances) paid by TSMC rose 21.6 percent to reach about NT$3.33 million, lifting its ranking by 10 notches
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
SEASONAL WEAKNESS: The combined revenue of the top 10 foundries fell 5.4%, but rush orders and China’s subsidies partially offset slowing demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) further solidified its dominance in the global wafer foundry business in the first quarter of this year, remaining far ahead of its closest rival, Samsung Electronics Co, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. TSMC posted US$25.52 billion in sales in the January-to-March period, down 5 percent from the previous quarter, but its market share rose from 67.1 percent the previous quarter to 67.6 percent, TrendForce said in a report. While smartphone-related wafer shipments declined in the first quarter due to seasonal factors, solid demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) devices and urgent TV-related orders
MINERAL DIPLOMACY: The Chinese commerce ministry said it approved applications for the export of rare earths in a move that could help ease US-China trade tensions Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng (何立峰) is today to meet a US delegation for talks in the UK, Beijing announced on Saturday amid a fragile truce in the trade dispute between the two powers. He is to visit the UK from yesterday to Friday at the invitation of the British government, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. He and US representatives are to cochair the first meeting of the US-China economic and trade consultation mechanism, it said. US President Donald Trump on Friday announced that a new round of trade talks with China would start in London beginning today,
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