AVIATION
Boeing 787 delayed
US aerospace giant Boeing Co has warned some customers its new 787 Dreamliner will face delays of up to 10 months, Aviation Week reported on Friday, citing industry sources. According to people familiar with the situation, Korean Air is the airline hardest hit so far, the industry magazine said on its Web site. Korean will get its first 787 in August 2012, 10 months later than previously planned. Air India now is believed to be scheduled to receive its first 787 in September or October next year instead of April, while Japan Airlines will take delivery of its first 787 in June next year at the earliest, Aviation Week said.
COMPUTERS
Dell mulls going private
US computer giant Dell Inc has not ruled out going private as it weighs its options for the future, chief financial officer Brian Gladden said in an interview published on Friday “We spend a whole lot of time thinking about this,” Gladden told CNNMoney.com. “There are many options for us, and we have lots of cash on hand,” he said. “We talk about everything from keeping everything the same, to doing a bigger and broader buyback, while still keeping the company public, all the way to doing a leveraged buyout and taking the company private with [chief executive Michael Dell] as the primary shareholder.” The company will discuss the issue next month in a board meeting, Gladden said.
PUBLISHING
Magazine drops subscribers
US News & World Report magazine plans to stop sending its monthly print edition to subscribers next year and go mostly online. In a memo sent to staff on Friday, Brian Kelly, the magazine’s editor, said next month’s issue will be the last monthly issue sent to subscribers. Monthly print versions will continue to be available at newsstands and it will continue to publish occasional guides on colleges, history, personal finance and other topics. Its content will continue to be available at USNews.com, which has 9 million visitors a month. Kelly told the New York Times that the move won’t result in more layoffs.
FINANCING
Fannie Mae’s losses narrow
US government-controlled mortgage buyer Fannie Mae is asking for US$2.5 billion in additional US federal aid after posting a narrower loss in the third quarter. Fannie Mae said on Friday it lost US$3.46 billion, or US$0.61 cents a share, in the July-to-September quarter. That takes into account US$2.1 billion in dividend payments to the US Treasury Department. It compares with a loss of US$19.8 billion, or US$3.47 a share, in the third quarter of last year. The US federal government rescued Washington-based Fannie Mae and sibling company Freddie Mac about two years ago and it estimates that will cost US taxpayers up to US$259 billion.
INSURANCE
AIG shows Q3 loss
American International Group Inc (AIG) is reporting a US$2.4 billion loss, or US$17.62 per share, for the third quarter, dragged down by hefty charges tied to selling off some assets. That were compared with earnings of US$92 million, or US$0.68 cents per share, a year ago. Restructuring-related charges amounted to US$4.5 billion. The sale of AIG’s 80 percent stake in consumer credit business American General Finance Inc weighed heavily on the quarter. Revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30 dipped 3 percent to US$19.09 billion from US$19.6 billion, the New York-based company said on Friday.
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