AUTOMAKERS
EVs boost market share
Electric vehicles (EV) have boosted their market share in Europe, data showed yesterday, as the region prepares to abandon gasoline and diesel. Battery EVs more than doubled their share of new car sales in Europe in the second quarter, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) said. All-electric vehicles accounted for 7.5 percent of new car sales in Europe from April to June, against 3.5 percent a year earlier. In absolute terms, sales of battery electric vehicles more than tripled across Europe to 210,298 cars. The ACEA said there were substantial gains in the region’s top four markets, led by sales more than quadrupling in Spain and Germany. The publication of the data comes a week after the European Commission unveiled plans for what amounts to an effective ban on sales of new gasoline and diesel vehicles from 2035.
EUROZONE
Services lead recovery
Europe’s post-COVID-19 lockdown economic surge strengthened this month, but businesses warned of threats to the outlook in the form of shortages of raw materials, delivery delays and rising costs. IHS Markit’s monthly measure of private-sector activity in the eurozone jumped to 60.6 from 59.5 last month, the highest in more than two decades. Employment also rose, it said. However, the improvement was due entirely to the services sector, as manufacturing output dropped, with many firms blaming delivery logjams and supply-chain issues that held up production. Supply disruption has been one of the dominant stories of the year amid a demand surge as economies bounced back from COVID-19 restrictions. The scramble to ramp up production after last year’s recession has led to shortages across industries, with semiconductors among the most high-profile examples.
INTERNET
Twitter beats profit forecasts
Twitter on Thursday posted better-than-expected results for last quarter, with gains in revenue, profit and its user base. Net profit was US$66 million on revenue that surged to US$1.19 billion, beating analysts’ expectations. That compared with a loss of US$1.38 billion in the same quarter a year earlier, the San Francisco-based tech firm said. “Second-quarter revenue growth substantially exceeded estimates,” Third Bridge analyst Scott Kessler said. The closely watched figure of “monetizable” daily users rose to 206 million in the quarter, up 11 percent from the same period last year. Twitter said in its statement that more people were on the platform as a result of “ongoing product improvements and global conversation around current events.”
TELECOMS
China Telecom to list
Half a year after being booted off the New York Stock Exchange, China Telecom Corp (中國電信) has received regulatory approval for a primary share sale in Shanghai that is set to be the world’s biggest so far this year. The plan to raise 54.4 billion yuan (US$8.4 billion) on the mainland comes as rising tensions with the US drive Chinese firms back to local equity markets. Tighter rules in China on overseas listings and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) push to elevate mainland markets are adding to the momentum. “Chinese companies coming home will be a trend given the current political tensions between US and China and tightened regulatory rules,” said Dickie Wong (黃德几), executive director of research at Kingston Securities (Hong Kong) Ltd (金利豐證券). The trend “is likely to be very strong in the short and long term, or even forever,” he said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by