GERMANY
Industry slumps 1.9 percent
Industrial output in November unexpectedly fell for the third consecutive month, data showed yesterday, adding to signs that Europe’s largest economy shifted into a lower gear in the final quarter of last year. Industrial output was down 1.9 percent, way below a Reuters forecast of an increase of 0.3 percent, Federal Statistics Office data showed. The figure for October was revised down to a fall of 0.8 percent from a previously reported drop of 0.5 percent. Factories churned out fewer intermediate, capital and consumer goods, according to more detailed data published by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Output in the construction industry also decreased, as did production in the energy sector. The ministry pointed to special factors including an unusually high number of bridge days around national holidays and problems faced by the car industry as it adjusted to new emission standards.
PATENTS
China to outpace Germany
Chinese inventors last year received a record number of US patents and are on pace to overtake Germany in the No. 4 position of top recipients, an analysis of filings with the US Patent and Trademark Office showed. Inventors working for Chinese companies were issued 12,589 US patents, up 12 percent on the year and a 10-fold increase over the 1,223 they received a decade ago. The US still dominates the field, with 46 percent of the 308,853 US utility patents issued last year, followed by companies based in Japan, South Korea and Germany. Six of the top 10 recipients of patents are US companies, including top recipient IBM Corp and chip rivals Intel Corp and Qualcomm Inc, as well as Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and Ford Motor Co. The four Asian companies in the top 10 were Samsung Electronics Co at No. 2, Canon Inc, LG Electronics Inc and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).
ELECTRONICS
Boycott hitting Apple: bank
Chinese consumers might be staging an “informal boycott” of US products that is hitting Apple Inc’s iPhones, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts said. If that is the case, it would help explain Apple’s warning last week that revenue from China was taking a hit, even as Chinese rivals post steady shipments. According to a survey conducted by equity research specialists, consumers in China and India are showing less interest in upgrading to an iPhone and more interest in upgrading to Xiaomi Corp (小米) and Samsung products, the bank said. Apple sales might also suffer from a general redirection of Chinese demand away from US products, the report said.
AUTOMAKERS
Daimler auto trucks eye US
Daimler AG this year is to start selling a heavy-duty truck in the US that is able to brake, accelerate and steer at all speeds on its own. This would coincide with the planned launch of Tesla Inc’s Semi truck, which would stoke competition at a time when demand in North America is forecast to soften. The updated Freightliner Cascadia, which would also have lane-keeping assistance, fuses information from radar and cameras to enable partially autonomous technology, Daimler said on Monday at the CES conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. To maintain its lead over Volvo AB and Paccar Inc, the manufacturer said it plans to within a decade offer highly automated vehicles on some routes.
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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