LG Electronics Inc, South Korea's second-largest electronics maker, said quarterly profit surged 85 percent on mobile-phone sales and contributions from its flat- panel venture with Royal Philips Electronics NV.
Second-quarter net income rose to 494 billion won (US$427 million), compared with 267 billion won a year earlier, the Seoul-based company said in a regulatory filing. Sales rose 29 percent to 6 trillion won.
The company has relied on LG.Philips LCD Co, its venture with Amsterdam-based Philips, Europe's biggest consumer-electronics maker, for profit growth during the past year. A decline in prices for liquid crystal displays and price-cutting by mobile-phone makers including Nokia Oyj may lead to slower profit growth in the second half.
"Earnings were OK but not that big a surprise," said Lee Ju-an, who manages the equivalent of US$778 million at Daehan Investment Trust Management Co.
"Problem is LCD prices may decline," Lee said.
Nokia Oyj, the world's largest mobile-phone maker, said last week that earnings per share may fall by half as it cuts prices to gain market share. Samsung Electronics Co, the world's third-largest handset maker, said on Friday that Nokia's price reduction may "influence badly."
With LCDs, Samsung Electronics, the world's largest flat panel maker, said it expects LCD supply to exceed demand during the second half of the year. Last month, researcher DisplaySearch cut its price forecasts for LCDs geared for monitors and televisions, citing rising inventories.
Operating profit rose 51 percent to 395 billion won and the company forecast second-half sales would rise at least 20 percent from the year-earlier period.
The company was expected to earn net income of 432 billion won, operating profit of 381 billion won and sales of 6 trillion won, according to the average estimate of 18 analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Mobile-phone sales jumped 87 percent to 1.9 trillion won, or 9.9 million units, the company said. That helped the telecommunications division generate 140 billion won of operating profit, or 6.6 percent of the division's sales, up from a 3.2 percent operating margin in the first quarter.
"Telecom margins were a pleasant surprise -- more than doubling from the first quarter," said Charles Park, an analyst at Samsung Securities Co. in Seoul.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained