REAL ESTATE
Singapore raises stamp duty
Singapore is raising property taxes to cool its red-hot housing market, amid mounting concern that an influx of wealth into the city-state is hurting affordability for locals and its competitiveness as a financial hub. The government is increasing stamp duties for second-home buyers and foreigners purchasing private property, it said in a statement. For foreigners buying any home, the tax rate doubled to 60 percent from 30 percent. The city-state’s property sector has remained buoyant even as countries elsewhere face slowdowns due to soaring interest rates and inflation, partly due to an inflow of money, especially from the wealthy Chinese. A shortage of supply and rising construction costs during the COVID-19 pandemic propelled home prices and rents, fueling discontent among residents.
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota posts top production
Toyota Motor Corp cemented its position atop the world’s automaking giants, producing a record 10.7 million vehicles as a group for the 12 months ended March 31, due to increased capacity and production optimization in North America and Asia. Global sales, which include brands such as Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd, came in at 10.6 million units, up 1.7 percent on strong demand, Toyota said in a statement yesterday. Output of Toyota-branded vehicles and Lexus models was 9.13 million units, in line with what the company had forecast earlier. A better supply of chips following the prolonged global semiconductor dearth helped Toyota move away from COVID-19-induced production snarls.
SEMICONDUCTORS
STMicro revenue increases
STMicroelectronics NV’s net revenue in the first quarter of this year rose 20 percent from a year earlier, as demand from vehicle makers and industry customers insulated it from a broader downturn in the semiconductor industry. The Franco-Italian chipmaker’s net revenue rose to US$4.25 billion in the period, the company said in a statement yesterday. Demand for STMicro products has been driven by customers such as Tesla Inc in its automotive unit, which is the company’s largest business area and has benefited from growing electric vehicle sales. Its industry division is expected to be another key area of growth this year as factories become more connected, STMicro said in January.
PHARMACEUTICALS
AstraZeneca profits buoyant
AstraZeneca yesterday beat expectations for first-quarter profit and revenue, as buoyant sales of cancer drug Imfinzi and strong demand for its roster of drugs in emerging markets helped to offset dwindling COVID-19 product sales. The company’s sales and outlook highlight the rapid decline of its COVID-19 vaccine, its best-selling product in 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has struggled to compete with rival shots developed by Pfizer and Moderna. The London-listed drugmaker, which reports its results in US dollars, reported adjusted profit of US$1.92 per share on sales of about US$10.9 billion. Analysts were expecting about US$1.71 per share on sales of about US$10.6 billion, company-compiled estimates showed. The company’s cancer drug Imfinzi generated US$900 million in the quarter, beating estimates of US$735 million from brokerage Cowen. Sales of its COVID-19 vaccine dropped to US$28 million in the first quarter, compared with US$1.14 billion a year earlier, as the company lost ground to rival mRNA shots.
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
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