BMW beat longtime rival Mercedes-Benz in 2021 to win the top spot in luxury car sales for the first time since 2015. BMW has responded more effectively at a time when global car production is constrained by a shortage of semiconductors. Sales of BMW-branded cars rose 9 per cent in 2021 to a record 2.2 million, surpassing Mercedes' about 2.1 million. Production under Daimler's Mercedes brand shrank 5 per cent after chip shortages intensified sharply in the second half of last year. Sales of all-electric vehicles such as BMW plug-in hybrids and iX have jumped 70 per cent to 328316, while all-electric vehicle sales have more than doubled, a feat aimed at repeating this feat in 2022.

The global shortage of semiconductors has seriously affected Volkswagen's production, with its car sales falling to its lowest level in a decade in 2021.. Despite strong orders, a shortage of spare parts hit production, with group-wide deliveries falling 4.5 per cent last year to 8.88 million vehicles, the lowest since 2011. The company is in worse shape than many of its peers. Volkswagen sales are weak in Europe and Asia, while growth is in North America. After the initial outbreak hit demand, the company's North American sales rose 16 per cent. Sales in China, Volkswagen's largest market, fell 14 per cent. Volkswagen's electric car sales almost doubled to 452900.

Although the global chip shortage and the COVID-19 epidemic in China have disrupted car production, China's passenger car market reversed three consecutive years of decline last year, thanks to strong growth in electric vehicle sales.. Passenger car sales in 2021 rose 4.4% from the previous year to 20.15 million units, the China passenger car Market Information Association announced on Tuesday. Strong sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids contributed to the growth of passenger car sales in China in 2021, which accounted for 15 per cent of total passenger car sales last year. Sales of these new energy vehicles more than doubled to 2.99 million last year.

The industry group of Japanese auto sales companies released the ranking of sales of various new cars (including light vehicles) in Japan in 2021, and Toyota's "Yaris" jumped to the top of the annual list for the first time.Sales were 212927 vehicles, an increase of 40.3% over the same period last year. The Honda light vehicle "N-BOX", which remained number one for four years in a row by 2020, ranked second, with sales of 188940 vehicles, down 3.6 per cent from a year earlier. In third place was Toyota's "Roomy", with sales of 134801 vehicles, up 54.5 per cent from a year earlier.

During the epidemic, the online used car sales market is hot. Now, General Motors Co (General Motors) wants to help its dealers get a bigger share.. The Detroit carmaker is launching a new website called CarBravo that will help General Motors Co dealers in the United States sell and sell used cars online, competing directly with Carvana and other retailers that have sold online over the past two years. General Motors Co dealers will sell General Motors Co and non-General Motors Co vehicles through the website.

South Korean parts suppliers have started the war to enter the Apple Car supply chain of Apple Inc self-driving electric vehicles.It is estimated that Apple Inc is expected to complete the selection of Apple Car suppliers within this year and move on to the stage of comprehensive development. At present, Apple Inc is very interested in Korean parts suppliers. Apple Inc executives visited a number of car companies in South Korea on December 11, 2011. this is the second time they have held talks with a South Korean company. The last time was last summer, when Apple Inc discussed the supply of batteries for cars with LG and SK. Apple Inc has been in talks with a major manufacturer, but also wants to work with several South Korean electronics companies.

Microsoft Corp (Microsoft) poached a senior chip designer from Apple Inc (Apple) because he wanted to expand his server chip business.. Mike Filippo will work on processors within the Microsoft Corp Azure team led by Rani Borkar. A spokesman for Microsoft Corp, who has also worked at Arm and Intel Corp, confirmed the hiring of Filippo. The move shows that Microsoft Corp is accelerating the development of self-developed chips for his servers that support Azure cloud computing services. Amazon.Com Inc and Alphabet Inc-CL C, Microsoft Corp's biggest cloud competitors, have made similar efforts.

Among the managers of large Korean companies who attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, more than 30 tested positive for COVID-19 in the United States.. About 20 executives from Samsung Electronics and about six people from the SK Group tested positive for the virus after taking part in the CES. Hyundai said six employees who participated in the CES tested positive and quarantined while in the United States, and some of them were later released from quarantine. "several" Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Mobis executives who participated in the CES also tested positive when they returned to South Korea, but did not specify the number of cases.

Yahoo Japan (Yahoo! JAPAN) announced on Wednesday that it would allow its 8000 employees to work anywhere in Japan and even fly to and from work when needed.This is contrary to the trend of more and more companies hoping to get employees back to the office in the third year of COVID-19 's pandemic. Yahoo Japan said the plan would take effect on April 1 and allow employees to commute by air, which was previously impossible. Yahoo set its monthly commuting budget at 150000 yen per person and raised its previous one-day limit. Face-to-face communication will still be encouraged, and each employee will receive a monthly social gathering allowance of 5000 yen.

Citigroup Inc (Citigroup) is to withdraw from retail banking in Mexico, the latest strategic shift by Jane Fraser, the company's chief executive.. The bank said on Tuesday that it would withdraw from its retail, small and medium-sized business and mid-market banking business in Mexico, which is called Banamex. Citigroup Inc said the change was part of its continued "strategic update". Revenue from these businesses in the first nine months of 2021 was about $3.5 billion, or about 6 per cent of the bank's total revenue for the same period. Citigroup Inc will retain his investment banking and institutional business in Mexico, as well as his private banking business.

Over the past five years, UBS has attracted wealthy families with high-end services, doubling the profits of its US wealth management business. The next step of the group will be to win over less wealthy clients with cheaper digital consulting services.. The Swiss bank, which claims to be one of the world's largest wealth managers, has access to more than half of its billionaires and manages 3.2 trillion dollars in investment assets. Now, UBS is walking down the wealth curve, opening up a bigger profit pool-people who have between $250000 and $2 million in investable assets but do not want to manage their own portfolios or hire financial advisers. Its target group is about 2 million people.

EU antitrust officials are preparing to block a $2 billion merger of South Korea's two largest shipyards in the worldThis is the first time since 2019 that Brussels has decided to veto a merger. EU officials said they would block the proposed merger of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Hyundai Heavy Industries on anti-competitive grounds. The EU is concerned that the merger of the two companies will dominate the market for liquefied natural gas carriers at a time of soaring energy prices in Europe.

Nidec of Japan will build a new plant in China to increase production into machine tools for machining gears such as pure electric vehicles (EV).. The investment is 50 billion yen. It plans to expand the related business of pure electric vehicles in addition to the main product motors. The new plant will be built in Pinghu, Zhejiang Province, where the group's factories gather, to become one of the Japanese Nidec Machine Tool plants acquired from Mitsubishi heavy Industries in August 2021. It will be put into production in the spring of 2023 at the earliest. It is planned to promote the construction of the project in three phases.

South Korea's LG Chemical announced on January 11th that it will build a new cathode material factory for automotive battery materials in South Korea.The investment is 500 billion won and the annual production capacity is 60, 000 tons, which can be used for 500000 pure electric vehicles (EV). LLG Chemical will build a factory area of 60, 000 square meters in the Guiwei Industrial Park. Mass production is planned to begin by 2025. A special production line for cathode materials will be built to produce "NCMA" cathode materials. LG Chemical has two cathode material factories in South Korea and one in China, and the new factory will be the fourth. The current annual production capacity is 80,000 tons. Through the construction of new plants and additional investment in existing plants, capacity will increase to 170000 tons by 2025.

Ascend Performance Materials announced that it will build a new production base in Lianyungang City, Jiangsu Province to produce hexanediamine and specialty chemicals.To further expand the global layout. The investment is Oshengde's first chemical production base outside the United States, which will produce hexanediamine and specialty chemicals, provide raw materials for its own global polyamide production and supply regional customers at the same time. Aoshengde is a large upstream and downstream integrated manufacturer of durable engineering materials used in a variety of industries, including automotive, paints and coatings, electronics, consumer goods, as well as cable straps and fasteners.

Albert Bourla, CEO of US pharmaceutical company Pfizer Inc (Pfizer), said on January 10th that "a vaccine specifically against (mutant) Omicron will be ready in March" on the novel coronavirus vaccine jointly developed by the company and Germany's BioNTech.. Bora said production of a vaccine specific to the Omicron strain had begun. However, he stressed that if the existing vaccine has been given an additional third dose, it still has a preventive effect on hospitalization and death. Modena (Moderna Inc), another US drug company, is also developing a vaccine specifically against Omicron strain.

Coresight Research, a research and consulting firm, estimates that fast commerce generated about $20 billion to $25 billion in retail sales in the United States last year.Well, including services provided by companies such as DoorDash, Instacart and Uber Eats. Gopuff, the largest express start-up valued at $15 billion as of July 2021, is said to be considering an initial public offering as early as this year. Investors are betting that even after people adapt to the new normal, they will not give up the convenience of door-to-door delivery during the epidemic. The question is whether the economic investment needed to support rapid delivery commitments will lead to sustainable returns.

Hyatt Hotel Group (Hyatt Hotels) has announced plans to expand its brand in the Asia-Pacific region, further deepening the layout of its luxury and lifestyle brands.According to the plan, Hyatt will introduce three unique hotel brands, Hyatt Gala (Caption by Hyatt), Hyatt Destination by Hyatt (Hyatt) and Thompson Hotels, for the first time in the Asia-Pacific region, covering different market segments such as millennials and Gen Z. With the addition of these three brands, Hyatt will provide a more differentiated hotel experience to better meet the growing needs of travelers, Hyatt members and owners.

About 3000 employees of United Airlines (United Airlines) tested positive in the recent COVID-19 test, which is more than 4% of the total number of employees of the company.. One day during the Christmas and New year holidays, nearly 1/3 of United employees at Newark Liberty International Airport, one of the company's important hubs, called in sick.

Financial report information

YASKAWA, a Japanese industrial robot and automation equipment company, reported consolidated results for the period from March to November 2021, showing net profit (IAS) of 30.7 billion yen, 2.2 times that of the same period last year. Sales rose 28 per cent year-on-year to 357.3 billion yen.