People walk under lanterns during the 15th annual Akimatsuri Japanese Autumn Festival at the Borely Park Botanical Garden in Marseille, France, on Saturday.
Photo: AFP
Bankers in Hong Kong skipped the summer break as an artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled rush for capital sent share sales to a record, defying a bruising selloff in the city’s stocks. Initial public offerings (IPOs), placements and block trades raised US$47.5 billion in July to last month, the biggest haul ever for the period, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That pushed fundraising this year above US$92 billion and within reach of the US$112.5 billion record set in 2021. AI has been at the heart of Hong Kong’s deal revival, but this summer brought a new level of intensity. Chinese companies raised ever-larger sums
BOOMING BUSINESS: Memory supply constraints would be even more severe in 2027 and 2028, prompting customers to sign long-term supply agreements, Micron said Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光) yesterday said it is accelerating memorychip capacity expansion amid growing artificial intelligence (AI)-driven demand, with its accumulated investment in Taiwan reaching NT$1.6 trillion (US$50.2 billion) as of June. The company’s investment in Taiwan has surged over the past four years, with recent spending equaling the total invested over the past 25 years, Micron Taiwan chairman Donghui Lu (盧東暉) told a media briefing in Taipei. “The launch of ChatGPT and the outbreak of COVID triggered increasing demand for memory chips. Since then, demand has gathered pace rapidly, with only a brief pause in 2023 when a major downturn”
Taiwan ranked fifth worldwide in net financial assets per capita at the end of last year, averaging 164,470 euros (US$186,219), a report released this week by Germany-based Allianz Research said. Taiwan's ranking remained unchanged from the previous year, trailing only the US, Switzerland, Denmark and Singapore, Allianz’s Global Wealth Report said. In the report, Allianz assessed household assets and liabilities in nearly 60 countries, finding that global household wealth reached a record high last year, while the rise of artificial intelligence and market gains made asset ownership increasingly important in determining who benefits from wealth creation. Global financial assets reached a record 268.4
Apple Inc is set to sell about 6 million units of the iPhone Duo this year, Counterpoint Research said, offering the first estimate for how the company’s inaugural foldable device would fare. The figure, more typical of the niche foldable segment than Apple’s usual smartphone sales, is contingent on how well the company ramps up production of the new hardware, Counterpoint senior analyst Ivan Lam (林科宇) said. Priced at US$1,999 and set for a release this month, the iPhone Duo sits atop the Apple lineup and carries industry wide hopes for stoking greater interest and sales of foldables. Market researcher IDC Corp
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