TECHNOLOGY
Intel to cut Mobileye stake
Intel Corp plans to sell part of its holdings in Mobileye Global Inc, to raise about US$1.48 billion for its ambitious spending plans. The US company is offering 35 million shares with an option to sell a further 5.25 million shares of the Israeli automated driving technology maker, Mobileye said on Monday in a regulatory filing. Mobileye stock has more than doubled since its initial public offering in October last year. Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley are to underwrite the sale. Following the sale, Intel would retain about an 88 percent stake in Mobileye, which it bought in 2018 for US$15.3 billion.
CHINA
Deposit rates to shrink
Authorities have asked the nation’s biggest banks to lower their deposit rates for at least the second time in less than a year, people familiar with the matter said. Several state-owned lenders were last week advised to cut rates on a range of products, including on demand deposits by 5 basis points and three-year and five-year time deposits by at least 10 basis points, the people said. Banks are assessing the request and could adjust rates as early as this week, they said. Big lenders currently offer an annualized rate of 0.25 percent on demand deposits, and 2.6 percent and 2.65 percent on three-year and five-year time deposits respectively.
GERMANY
Industrial orders drop again
Industrial orders unexpectedly fell again in April following a sharp drop the month before, official data showed yesterday, adding to concerns about the health of Europe’s biggest economy. New orders, closely watched as a foretaste of future industrial activity, declined 0.4 percent in April from a month earlier, federal statistics agency Destatis said. The drop comes after orders plummeted 10.9 percent in March, the biggest decline since April 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced widespread lockdowns.
JAPAN
Real wage slide continues
Workers’ real wages continued to fall in April, even after reflecting some of the gains from a solid win in annual pay negotiations, creating a headache for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida as he considers calling an election. Real cash earnings for workers dropped 3 percent from a year earlier in April, slipping for the 13th month, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare reported yesterday. Nominal cash earnings increased 1 percent from the previous year, it said. A separate report showed that households cut spending in April, an indication that higher prices are sapping consumers’ spending appetite. Household outlays fell 4.4 percent from a year earlier, it said.
GAMING
Microsoft to settle charges
Microsoft Corp is to pay US$20 million to settle government charges that it collected personal information from children without their parents’ consent, officials said on Monday. The US Federal Trade Commission alleged that from 2015 to 2020 Microsoft collected personal data from children under the age of 13 who signed up to its Xbox gaming system without their parents’ permission and retained the information. The decision still needs the approval of a federal court before it can be implemented. A spokesperson for Microsoft said that Xbox would develop an identity and age validation process to deliver age-appropriate experiences.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”