AUTOMAKERS
European sales rise again
Auto sales in Europe last month rose for a ninth straight month as supply chains improved and automakers worked through backlogs of orders. New vehicle registrations increased 16 percent to 964,932, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said yesterday. While the recovery continues, deliveries during the first four months of the year remain roughly one-fifth below pre-COVID-19 levels. Automakers across the volume, premium and luxury segments have continued to post better results even as inflation remains elevated and concerns about the economic outlook deepen. Fully electric vehicles saw a nearly 50 percent increase in registrations compared with April last year, while sales of gas-fueled vehicles rose 15 percent. Orders for diesel-powered vehicles declined slightly.
BANKING
Commerzbank profit jumps
Germany’s second-biggest lender Commerzbank AG yesterday said that its net profit almost doubled in the first quarter, thanks to “a tailwind” from higher interest rates. The group said it made a bottom-line profit of 580 million euros (US$627.6 million), compared with 298 million euros over the same period a year earlier. Quarterly revenues fell slightly to just under 2.7 billion euros, from 2.8 billion euros a year earlier, Commerzbank said. The dip was partly due to charges set aside to cover legal costs at its Polish unit mBank, the lender said. “We had a very good start to 2023,” Commerzbank CEO Manfred Knof said in a statement. Looking ahead, the lender said it is aiming for a full-year net profit “well above that of 2022.”
PHARMACEUTICALS
FTC aims to halt Amgen bid
US regulators on Tuesday filed a lawsuit to block biopharmaceutical firm Amgen Inc’s proposed US$28 billion takeover of drugmaker Horizon Therapeutics PLC, saying that the transaction would harm consumers. In a suit filed in federal court, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said the deal would enable Amgen to entrench the monopoly positions of Horizon medications to treat thyroid eye disease and chronic refractory gout. In addition, Amgen has a history of granting rebates on popular medications in exchange for preferential placement of other products with insurers and pharmaceutical benefit managers, the FTC said. This practice might make it difficult, if not impossible, for smaller rivals to match the level of rebates that Amgen would be able to offer, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
Musk wrong: Microsoft CEO
Microsoft Corp is not in control of OpenAI Inc, CEO Satya Nadella said in an interview on Tuesday, disputing the allegation by Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk, who had said that Microsoft was effectively in control of the start-up. Small players very much have a chance to compete against large firms such as his and Alphabet Inc’s Google, Nadella said. The Microsoft CEO said OpenAI’s board was steering the ship, contradicting Musk, who pulled out of the start-up years ago. “OpenAI is very grounded in their mission of being controlled by a nonprofit board,” Nadella said. “We have a non-controlling interest in it, we have a great commercial partnership in it.” The ability of smaller companies to break into artificial intelligence would “depend on product-market fit,” and it is not guaranteed that Microsoft and Google would be “the only two games in town,” Nadella said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
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