PHARMACEUTICALS
Roche sales drop on Tamiflu
Roche Holding AG says its third-quarter sales dropped 7 percent on lower demand for its antiviral Tamiflu. Sales were 11.5 billion Swiss francs (US$12 billion) in the quarter ended Sept. 30, down from SF12.4 billion a year earlier. The company said in a statement yesterday that sales of Tamiflu, which had spiked during the swine flu pandemic, almost ground to a halt in the US and European markets. The group said it expects Tamiflu sales in the year to total SF1 billion, down from 3.2 billion last year. Despite the drop, Roche confirmed its full-year outlook of sales growth in the mid-single-digit range.
FASHION
Prada mulls HK listing
Italian fashion giant Prada could be poised to float its shares at an initial public (IPO) offering in Hong Kong, hoping for a toe-hold in China’s massive market, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. The luxury chain, majority owned by the Prada family, is considering whether to list in Europe or Hong Kong, with questions of liquidity and volatility the key factors, the paper said. Prada plans to open 28 new stores in Hong Kong and China and expects its Asian sales to exceed those in Europe in the next three years, the report said. A final decision will be made in the next two months.
AUTOMOBILES
GM ponders IPO pricing
General Motors chairman Ed Whitacre says that the company’s stock will debut at a price somewhere between US$20 to US$25 a share when its IPO takes place next month. WOAI-TV and the San Antonio Express-News say that Whitacre spoke about the price at the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce in Texas. GM has not officially announced a date or price for the initial stock sale. Regulators still need to accept the sale plan. Whitacre says it’s too early to state the exact price.
MINING
Rio Tinto production rises
Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto said yesterday its iron ore production had expanded 1 percent to a new record in a solid third quarter for the company. Rio said its global iron ore figures, along with record production of alumina and Australian coal for steel making, had offset a slump in copper and gold production. “This quarter we achieved record production in iron ore, alumina and coking coal. Our investment in organic growth is gathering momentum,” Rio chief Tom Albanese said. “We continue to run our operations at close to or above capacity rates, taking advantage of strong prices for our products.”
GERMANY
Growth increase forecast
The nation’s top economic institutes have revised sharply upwards their growth forecast for this year from 1.5 percent to 3.5 percent from 1.5 percent, sources said yesterday. For next year, the institutes — who were due to release their twice-yearly report later yesterday — expect GDP to expand by around 2 percent and for unemployment to fall to less than 3 million. The government currently forecasts 1.4 percent growth this year, but ministers have indicated that the projection will be raised on Thursday next week.
BANKING
UBS forgives bad bankers
UBS said it would not initiate legal proceedings against former executives and board members for mistakes made during the US subprime crisis that forced a bailout of the bank. Chairman Kaspar Villiger said in a statement that the bank had learned lessons from the crisis.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six