AUTOMAKERS
BMW may invest in CATL
BMW AG is the first overseas automaker to get a potential toehold in Chinese electric-car battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co (CATL, 宇德時代), obtaining the right to make an equity investment of as much as 2.85 billion yuan (US$427 million) for an estimated 2 percent stake. BMW Brilliance (華晨寶馬汽車), its Chinese joint venture, is entitled to invest in CATL if the company plans to sell shares in China or abroad, according to a statement from the battery maker yesterday. BMW Brilliance will also prepay 2.85 billion yuan as part of a long-term contract to buy batteries from CATL. Additionally, it is purchasing an 815 million yuan battery-production project from the supplier to make designated products, according to the statement.
E-COMMERCE
Amazon sales a success
Amazon.com Inc’s sales rose sharply during the first three hours of its Prime Day sales event, dispelling fears that the technical glitches that incensed shoppers would significantly hurt business. Shoppers spent 54 percent more in the first three hours of this year’s event — from 3pm to 6pm — than in the first three hours of a year ago, when the shopping bonanza began at 9pm, according to Feedvisor, which sells software to set prices in e-commerce. Amazon’s annual 36-hour shopathon had been expected to drum up US$3.4 billion of spending. However, the e-commerce giant on Monday said that shoppers were having trouble on the site, while numerous customers vented their frustrations on social media with the hashtag #PrimeDayFail. Feedvisor’s estimates that the glitches limited sales in only the first hour of the event, when sales were down 5 percent before recovering in the second and third hours.
AUTOMAKERS
UK first-half sales fell 6.3%
UK car sales fell 6.3 percent during the first half of the year, running counter to rising demand on the continent, indicating the planned withdrawal from the EU is hurting consumer confidence. Business optimism last month dropped to the lowest level this year, as Britons became markedly more gloomy and unwilling to make purchases, according to separate indices on economic mood from Lloyds and Gfk. Overall new-car registrations across Europe rose 2.8 percent in the first six months, led by gains in France and Spain, according to figures released yesterday by the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. Germany, the largest market, also rose 2.9 percent.
E-COMMERCE
Pinduoduo plans IPO
Pinduoduo Inc (PDD, 拼多多), the Chinese e-commerce operator backed by Tencent Holdings (騰訊), plans to raise as much as US$1.6 billion in a US initial public offering (IPO) to bankroll a fight against rivals like Alibaba Group Holding (阿里巴巴). The Shanghai-based firm is offering 85.6 million American depositary shares at US$16 to US$19 apiece, it said in a stock exchange filing. PDD became one of China’s fastest-growing start-ups by creating a sort of Facebook-Groupon mashup that challenged the e-commerce duopoly of Alibaba Group Holding (京東). PDD, which has yet to turn a profit, popularized a format where people spot deals on products from fruit and clothing to toilet paper, then recruit friends to buy at a discount. It can offer savings of up to 20 percent on market prices by letting consumers buy directly from manufacturers, cutting out resellers and advertising.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
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