GERMANY
Industry slumps 1.9 percent
Industrial output in November unexpectedly fell for the third consecutive month, data showed yesterday, adding to signs that Europe’s largest economy shifted into a lower gear in the final quarter of last year. Industrial output was down 1.9 percent, way below a Reuters forecast of an increase of 0.3 percent, Federal Statistics Office data showed. The figure for October was revised down to a fall of 0.8 percent from a previously reported drop of 0.5 percent. Factories churned out fewer intermediate, capital and consumer goods, according to more detailed data published by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Output in the construction industry also decreased, as did production in the energy sector. The ministry pointed to special factors including an unusually high number of bridge days around national holidays and problems faced by the car industry as it adjusted to new emission standards.
PATENTS
China to outpace Germany
Chinese inventors last year received a record number of US patents and are on pace to overtake Germany in the No. 4 position of top recipients, an analysis of filings with the US Patent and Trademark Office showed. Inventors working for Chinese companies were issued 12,589 US patents, up 12 percent on the year and a 10-fold increase over the 1,223 they received a decade ago. The US still dominates the field, with 46 percent of the 308,853 US utility patents issued last year, followed by companies based in Japan, South Korea and Germany. Six of the top 10 recipients of patents are US companies, including top recipient IBM Corp and chip rivals Intel Corp and Qualcomm Inc, as well as Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and Ford Motor Co. The four Asian companies in the top 10 were Samsung Electronics Co at No. 2, Canon Inc, LG Electronics Inc and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).
ELECTRONICS
Boycott hitting Apple: bank
Chinese consumers might be staging an “informal boycott” of US products that is hitting Apple Inc’s iPhones, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said. If that is the case, it would help explain Apple’s warning last week that revenue from China was taking a hit, even as Chinese rivals post steady shipments. According to a survey conducted by equity research specialists, consumers in China and India are showing less interest in upgrading to an iPhone and more interest in upgrading to Xiaomi Corp (小米) and Samsung products, the bank said. Apple sales might also suffer from a general redirection of Chinese demand away from US products, the report said.
AUTOMAKERS
Daimler auto trucks eye US
Daimler AG this year is to start selling a heavy-duty truck in the US that is able to brake, accelerate and steer at all speeds on its own. This would coincide with the planned launch of Tesla Inc’s Semi truck, which would stoke competition at a time when demand in North America is forecast to soften. The updated Freightliner Cascadia, which would also have lane-keeping assistance, fuses information from radar and cameras to enable partially autonomous technology, Daimler said on Monday at the CES conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. To maintain its lead over Volvo AB and Paccar Inc, the manufacturer said it plans to within a decade offer highly automated vehicles on some routes.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
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