BMW yesterday became the latest auto giant to feel the pain of the financial crisis, announcing production cuts and a huge drop in profits, as EU finance ministers gathered amid recession stormclouds.
As a string of leading companies revealed sinking profits, the luxury German car firm said its third-quarter net profit plunged 63 percent to 298 million euros (US$378 million) and would cut production by an additional 40,000 units this year.
Owing to the poor market climate and “uncertainties caused by the financial crisis, the profitability targets set for 2008 are no longer achievable,” it said in a statement. “The likely progress of business over the coming months cannot be forecast with any exactitude.”
Meanwhile, clothing-to-food retailer Marks and Spencer, seen as a barometer of consumer sentiment in Britain, said net profits sank by 43 percent to £223.2 million (US$352 million) in the first half of the year owing to tough trading conditions.
“Market conditions and consumer confidence declined through the half, leading to reduced profits year on year due to lower sales,” M&S chief executive Stuart Rose said in the earnings release.
There was similarly gloomy news from the world’s biggest temp agency Adecco which said its third-quarter net profit fell almost a quarter, with revenues in countries hard hit by the financial crisis showing the steepest declines.
It warned it would miss its business targets “in the quarters to come” due to “difficult market conditions leading to even more pronounced pressure on revenues in most countries.”
The results from such economic bellweathers were likely to darken the mood at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels, being held a day after an official report forecast the 27-nation bloc was headed for recession.
“Investors have high expectations” for the next president to take action on the economy, said Sumitomo Trust Bank strategist Saburo Matsumoto.
The worsening outlook and weakening energy demand saw Brent crude oil price sink under US$59 per barrel, hitting the lowest point since February last year.
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],”
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
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