STEELMAKERS
ThyssenKrupp expects profit
The biggest German steelmaker, ThyssenKrupp, hopes to make a pre-tax profit of at least 1 billion euros (US$1.38 billion) in its current fiscal year, its boss said yesterday in an interview. “For the pre-tax profit we are headed for a figure of a billion [euros], or more,” Ekkehard Schulz told the business daily Handelsblatt. ThyssenKrupp, whose business year begins on Oct. 1, had previously forecast a pre-tax profit of between 100 million and 1 billion euros, and expected to fall somewhere in the middle. In its fiscal year for 2008 to last year, the group suffered a pre-tax loss of 2.4 billion euros owing in part to a global economic slump.
ELECTRONICS
Qualcomm halts FLO sales
US technology company Qualcomm said on Tuesday that it was suspending sales of its FLO TV “personal television” sets as it examines the future of the mobile TV service. “We have been examining strategic opportunities for FLO TV,” Qualcomm said in a statement. “While this process continues, we are suspending our direct-to-consumer sales of new devices.” FLO TV provides live television broadcasts to subscribers but the service has never really taken off and Qualcomm said it is in discussions about selling its network and spectrum. Besides the US, FLO TV has been tested in Britain, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan.
INTERNET
Yahoo acquires Dapper
Yahoo, seeking to maintain its hold on the display advertising market, announced on Tuesday that it had acquired Dapper, a company that creates the interactive Web advertisements. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Dapper, which was founded in 2006, operates a technology platform for display ad creation and optimization. “Dapper’s capabilities combined with Yahoo’s already deep consumer insights will further enhance Yahoo’s ability to deliver customized and relevant advertising,” the Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said in a statement.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Crucell stake sold
Pharmaceutical and healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson has reached a deal with Dutch biotechnology vaccine group Crucell to buy 82.5 percent of Crucell for about 1.75 billion euros, the two firms said yesterday. The payment, in cash, would be made by a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson which already owns 17.5 percent of the biotechnology firm. “This potential combination would provide us with a new platform for growth and advances our goal to deliver integrated health care solutions, with particular emphasis on prevention,” said Paul Stoffels, the head of pharmaceutical research at Johnson & Johnson.
TECHNOLOGY
LS Cable to buy wire
South Korea’s LS Cable said yesterday it has signed a contract to buy superconducting power wire from a US company, the world’s first commercial-scale deal for the next-generation product. LS Cable is buying 3,000km of the wire from American Superconductor Corporation so it can make cables to sell in world markets, a spokesman for the Korean firm told reporters. Superconducting cables, which can carry about 10 times as much power as copper wires of the same size and are more cost-effective, will be crucial for next-generation power grids, he said. “This is the first commercial-scale order for superconducting wire,” said spokesman Pitt Kim.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by