ELECTRONICS
ZTE nears final US hurdle
ZTE Corp (中興通訊) is close to clearing the final hurdle needed for the US government to lift sanctions that prevented the Chinese telecommunications giant from buying US equipment, a US Department of Commerce official said. The Shenzhen-based company has paid a US$1 billion fine and another US$400 million in escrow is to be completed in a couple of days, the official said. A bipartisan group of lawmakers remains concerned about ZTE’s threat to US national security and wants legislation aimed at stronger penalties.
COMMUNICATIONS
BlackBerry drops up to 10%
BlackBerry Ltd shares plunged the most in a year after investors focused on weak growth in software revenues that the company attributed to a change in accounting standards. Shares in BlackBerry on Friday fell as much as 10 percent to US$10.49 in New York, the greatest intraday drop since June 23 last year. Software revenue, the company’s most important growth metric, was US$83 million in the first quarter, 18 percent lower than a year earlier, a statement said on Friday.
INTERNET
Delivery giant files for IPO
Internet giant Meituan Dianping (美團點評) on Friday filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong, becoming the latest Chinese technology juggernaut to throw a multibillion-dollar coming-out party in Hong Kong this year, a person familiar with its filing documents said. Meituan made a net loss of 19 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion) on total revenue of 34 billion yuan for fiscal year 2017, the person said.
CANADA
May prices jumped 2.2%
Canadians paid 2.2 percent more for goods and services last month than a year earlier, with price hikes recorded in all categories, government data showed on Friday. Inflation was flat from the previous month, but came in well below forecasts of 2.6 percent, confirming economists’ predictions that the Bank of Canada would hold off raising interest rates when meeting next month. Gasoline was the biggest contributor to inflation last month, rising 23 percent year-on-year, Statistics Canada said.
UNITED STATES
Rise in self-employed drivers
Call it the Uber effect. The number of self-employed US workers in the taxi and limousine services industry, which includes ridesharing, surged 46 percent in 2016 to more than 700,000, a Census Bureau report released on Thursday showed. The government defines so-called “nonemployer establishments” as businesses without paid employees that have annual receipts of at least US$1,000.
EUROPEAN UNION
French-German plan in doubt
The Netherlands on Friday led a behind-the-scenes campaign to stop a French-German plan to establish a eurozone budget ahead of a key EU summit to discuss the matter. European sources said the Dutch government was making arguments on behalf of about a dozen countries that held wide-ranging doubts about the French-German plan. In an e-mail to Eurogroup President Mario Centeno, Dutch Minister of Finance Wopke Hoekstra insisted that the lack of consensus on the budget be clearly communicated to leaders at next week’s summit.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
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