REFINING
Sinopec profits surge
Chinese energy giant Sinopec Corp (中國石油化工), the world’s largest oil refiner, yesterday said its annual profit last year soared by almost a quarter thanks to growing domestic demand for natural gas. Sinopec’s profit grew 23.4 percent to 63.1 billion yuan (US$9.4 billion), the company said in a report submitted to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Domestic consumption of natural gas rose 18.1 percent to 280.3 billion cubic meters as the country’s environmental regulations became “more stringent,” the company said.
GERMANY
Banks consulted over merger
Minister of Finance Olaf Scholz and his state secretaries held talks with nearly 40 international banks over the past few months amid deliberations over a possible merger of Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG, Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland reported. The conversations included European firms such as UBS Group AG and BNP Paribas SA, as well as global banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citibank and Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行), the report said, quoting a parliamentary question filed by Green Party politician Danyal Bayaz.
INTERNET
Alibaba buys InfinityAR
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) has acquired Israeli start-up Infinity Augmented Reality (InfinityAR), after investing in the company three years ago. InfinityAR would join Alibaba’s Israel Machine Vision Laboratory, the start-up said in a statement posted on its Web site on Thursday last week. Financial details were not disclosed, but Alibaba paid more than US$10 million, according to an estimate from market sources cited by Globes.
MALAYSIA
Snub imperils EU arms deal
The government might retaliate against an EU plan to curb palm oil use by purchasing new fighter jets from China instead of European arms companies, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Sunday. The country is the world’s second-largest palm oil producer after neighboring Indonesia, and both countries have been at loggerheads with EU lawmakers over the crop’s cultivation, which has caused rampant deforestation and destruction of wildlife. Mahathir’s remarks come the day before a five-day international defense exhibition being hosted by the country.
INTERNET
EU might sanction Amazon
Amazon.com Inc is combining some offerings in a way similar to Alphabet Inc’s Google and could face sanctions to safeguard rules of competition, said Achim Wambach, chairman of Germany’s Monopolies Commission, an expert panel that advises the country’s federal government. “Amazon Prime connects different services as well,” Wambach told Welt am Sonntag in an interview, referring to the company’s membership program. The EU last year fined Google 4.3 billion euros (US$4.87 billion) for breaching antitrust rules.
INVESTMENT
Naspers mulls spin-offs
Naspers Ltd, the South African tech investor, is spinning off its main Internet businesses and listing them in Amsterdam in a push to boost its valuation. Naspers, which has a primary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, plans to list the Internet businesses not based in South Africa — the bulk of the company — on the Euronext Amsterdam. The spinoff, to initially be called NewCo, is expected to be 75 percent-owned by Naspers, with the rest a free float.
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
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
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
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