INTERNET
Facebook buys stake in Jio
Facebook Inc has taken a US$5.7 billion stake in the Jio digital platforms business of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, the two sides said yesterday, marking one of the biggest foreign investments in the country. The deal gives the US social media giant a 10 percent stake in Jio Platforms, part of Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd empire. Facebook said that it wanted to link up the “power of WhatsApp,” its messaging subsidiary, with Jio, which is taking a fast-growing share of the online sector to increase digital business. India is Facebook’s largest market with about 400 million users.
MEDIA
HK newspaper cuts staff
Hong Kong’s flagship English-language newspaper, the South China Morning Post is to cut senior management pay and ask staff to take unpaid leave for three weeks, a staff letter showed. CEO Gary Liu (劉可瑞) said in the letter that the cost cuts were needed because of a 20 percent fall in revenues in the 2019-2020 fiscal year and a 50 percent drop in the latest quarter despite more readers amid last year’s protests and the coronavirus outbreak. Liu said that “limited” layoffs would take place, salaries would be frozen and he was cutting “almost everything that can be spared” on operations.
AIRLINES
JAL cuts forecast 43%
Japan Airlines Corp (JAL) yesterday cut its forecast for annual net profits by 43 percent because of COVID-19. With the pandemic hammering both domestic and international routes, JAL said that net profit for the 2019 fiscal year that ended last month would be ￥53 billion yen (US$492.3 million), against an earlier forecast of ￥93 billion. JAL said that demand had plunged owing to entry bans around the world, the cancelation of major domestic events and a state of emergency in Japan with authorities requesting citizens refrain from travel. It also sharply revised down its sales to ￥1.41 trillion from a previous estimate of ￥1.48 trillion.
AUSTRALIA
Retail sales hit record
Retail sales last month soared by the most on record as households embarked on a buying frenzy, led by massive purchases of toilet paper, ahead of an expected lockdown to contain COVID-19. Preliminary sales advanced 8.2 percent last month, exceeding the previous record of 8.1 percent ahead of the introduction of a consumption tax in 2000, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. There was “unprecedented demand in March in the food retailing industry, with strong sales across supermarkets, liquor retailing and other specialized food,” the bureau said. “Additional analysis indicates monthly turnover doubled for products such as toilet and tissue paper, and rice and pasta.”
CHINA
Bad debt rises in Q1
Bad debt at banks climbed in the first quarter even as lenders deferred payments on and rolled over a combined 1.5 trillion yuan (US$212 billion) in loans amid the pandemic. After allowing banks to take a more lenient approach on how they classify bad debt, regulators yesterday revealed that the industry’s nonperforming loan ratio nudged up just 0.06 percentage point to 2.04 percent at the end of last month. The increase was held at bay as lenders agreed to let small businesses defer payments on 880 billion yuan in debt and rolled over another 576.8 billion yuan, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
Hypermarket chain Carrefour Taiwan and upscale supermarket chain Mia C’bon on Saturday announced the suspension of their partnership with Jkopay Co (街口支付), one of Taiwan’s largest digital payment providers, amid a lawsuit involving its parent company. Carrefour and Mia C’bon said they would notify customers once Jkopay services are reinstated. The two retailers joined an array of other firms in suspending their partnerships with Jkopay. On Friday night, popular beverage chain TP Tea (茶湯會) also suspended its use of the platform, urging customers to opt for alternative payment methods. Another drinks brand, Guiji (龜記), on Friday said that it is up to individual
READY TO BUY: Shortly after Nvidia announced the approval, Chinese firms scrambled to order the H20 GPUs, which the company must send to the US government for approval Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) late on Monday said the technology giant has won approval from US President Donald Trump’s administration to sell its advanced H20 graphics processing units (GPUs) used to develop artificial intelligence (AI) to China. The news came in a company blog post late on Monday and Huang also spoke about the coup on China’s state-run China Global Television Network in remarks shown on X. “The US government has assured Nvidia that licenses will be granted, and Nvidia hopes to start deliveries soon,” the post said. “Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us
RSS