MACROECONOMICS
UK employment slows
Growth in the number of people on British companies’ payrolls last month slowed to 0.8 percent from 1.1 percent in February, preliminary tax data that have been released earlier than usual to give a clearer sense of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic showed. “These experimental statistics show a softening picture in March, but cover the month as a whole, including the period before the coronavirus restrictions were in place,” Office for National Statistics official David Freeman said. The agency also reported a 12,100 monthly increase in the number of unemployment benefit claims last month, far below the median forecast of 172,500 in a Reuters poll of economists.
AUTOMAKERS
PSA vehicle sales fall 30%
French automaker PSA Group — owner of the Peugeot, Citroen and Opel brands — yesterday said it sold nearly 30 percent fewer vehicles during the first quarter of this year, as lockdowns due to the pandemic kept consumers away. The group suffered a less severe drop in revenue, which fell 15.6 percent to 15.2 billion euros (US$16.5 billion). The automaker sold 627,000 vehicles in the first quarter, compared with nearly 886,000 vehicles a year earlier. The second quarter is likely to be much more difficult for the automaker as lockdowns across Europe, its major market, have hobbled production and sales across the region this month. PSA now expects Europe’s auto market to shrink 25 percent this year.
BANKING
BOJ expects rising bad loans
Japanese lenders must brace for rising bad-loan costs and investment losses even as the financial system shows resilience to the COVID-19-fueled economic slump, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) said yesterday. If the downturn is prolonged, more companies at home and abroad could face solvency problems, raising credit costs, it said in its semi-annual Financial System Report. Losses on banks’ securities investment “could deteriorate” due to financial market moves, and foreign currency funding might become destabilized, it said.
GAMING
Components limit Switch
Nintendo Co has asked its partners to increase Switch production to sate a surge in global demand during the pandemic, but a lack of key components, such as memory, might curtail efforts to boost output. The Kyoto-based company has instructed suppliers to meet a revised forecast for 22 million units in the fiscal year ending March 2021, people familiar with the matter said. That is about the same level as the previous year, but up from expectations of a slight decrease in production of the three-year-old console.
SOFTWARE
SAP co-CEO stepping down
German software giant SAP AG co-CEO Jennifer Morgan is stepping down after just six months in the job, as the company switches back to a solo boss to steer it through the pandemic. Morgan, 48, became the first woman to head a company listed on Frankfurt’s DAX 30 index when she was appointed co-CEO, alongside Christian Klein, in October last year. “More than ever, the current environment requires companies to take swift, determined action which is best supported by a very clear leadership structure,” SAP said in a statement on Monday. In a decision it said was “mutually agreed” with the supervisory board, Morgan is to leave on Thursday next week, while Klein stays on as sole CEO.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
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