TECHNOLOGY
Chinese LGBTQ app lists
The owner of Blued, China’s biggest LGBTQ dating app, climbed 46 percent in its trading debut after raising US$85 million in a US initial public offering. BlueCity Holdings Ltd’s (藍城兄弟) shares, which rose as much as 124 percent earlier on Wednesday, closed at US$23.43 in New York trading. The Beijing-based company had sold 5.3 million shares at US$16 each. BlueCity CEO Ma Baoli (馬保力) said his company is listing in the US to showcase that China has a company that serves the LGBTQ community. “I am very confident that China will create a better environment for the LGBTQ community,” he said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
APPAREL
Uniqlo cuts profit outlook
Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing Co yesterday reported plunging profits and lowered its annual profit outlook, with the Japanese giant citing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced lengthy store closures. The firm expects annual net profit to August of ￥85 billion (US$792 million), down from an earlier projection of ￥100 billion announced in April, and nearly a half of what it earned in the previous year. Annual operating profit is forecast at ￥130 billion and sales at ￥1.99 trillion, compared with earlier forecasts for ￥145 billion and ￥2.09 trillion respectively. The revisions were necessary as previous forecasts did not account for the full effects of a state of emergency Japan declared earlier in the pandemic, which forced the firm to shut stores, as well as the slower-than-expected reopening of its branches overseas.
DEFENSE
Pentagon, IBM end dispute
An 11-year-old Pentagon case against International Business Machines Corp (IBM) ended quietly in October last year when it agreed to pay US$900,000 to settle claims involving hacking attacks on the National Defense University (NDU) that began in 2006. “It was alleged that IBM submitted false claims for the information technology services that it provided NDU,” the US Department of Defense’s inspector general said, disclosing the settlement in its latest semiannual report. “IBM allegedly did not fulfill its contractual obligations to provide substantial network security services” under an army contract that began in 2003. The department had initially sought to recover US$9 million. IBM filed a motion to dismiss the case that a judge for the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals denied in March 2018.
GERMANY
Exports jump in May
Exports in May rose sharply as COVID-19 containment measures eased, official data showed yesterday, adding to signs of a recovery in Europe’s top economy even if trade remains well below pre-pandemic levels. Exports climbed 9 percent to 80.3 billion euros (US$90.94 billion), compared with April, when they had their biggest plunge since records began, federal statistics office Destatis reported. Imports grew at a slower clip of 3.5 percent month-on-month, widening the trade surplus to 7.6 billion euros in seasonally adjusted terms. Analysts surveyed by Factset had predicted a stronger uptick in foreign trade, suggesting that firms met with weaker than expected demand as they reopened after weeks of lockdown. Compared with a year earlier, exports were down almost 30 percent, while imports were nearly 22 percent lower.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
A former ASML Holding NV employee is facing a lawsuit in the Netherlands over suspected theft of trade secrets, Dutch public broadcaster NOS said, in the latest breach of the maker of advanced chip-manufacturing equipment. The 43-year-old Russian engineer, who is suspected of stealing documents such as microchip manuals from ASML, is expected to appear at a court in Rotterdam today, NOS reported on Friday. He is accused of multiple violations of the sanctions legislation and has been given a 20-year entry ban by the Dutch government, the report said. The Dutch company makes machines needed to produce high-end chips that power
As South Korea descends into political chaos, its equity market risks falling further behind major tech rival Taiwan, which is basking in the glory of a global artificial intelligence (AI) boom. A near-30 percent surge in Taiwan’s stock benchmark this year, set to be the best since 2009, has already helped spur a historic divergence between Asia’s two tech-dominated markets. The nation’s market capitalization now exceeds South Korea’s by about US$950 billion as the world’s AI frontrunners from Nvidia Corp and Microsoft Corp to OpenAI all increasingly turn to Taiwanese firms for supply. Looking ahead to next year, while both export-oriented economies
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