AVIATION
ANA is back in black
All Nippon Airways Co (ANA) pivoted back into the black in the period between April and December last year, as robust travel demand and cost cuts bolstered the carrier’s bottom line. Japan’s No. 2 airline said yesterday it booked a net profit of ¥37.54 billion ($457.1 million), compared with a loss of ¥35.2 billion during the same nine months last year. Revenue rose more than 12 percent to ¥1.04 trillion. Operating profit came to ¥77.7 billion, a turnaround from a loss of ¥37.8 billion a year earlier. ANA credited a strong rebound in business travel for bolstering revenue on international routes.
STOCKS
UK, US seeking protection
Stock exchanges in Britain and the US have enlisted the help of the security services after finding out they were the victims of cyber attacks, the Times newspaper reported yesterday. The London Stock Exchange is investigating a terrorist cyber-attack on its headquarters last year, while US officials have traced an attack on one of its exchanges to Russia, according to the newspaper. Officials suspect the attacks were designed to spread panic among markets and destabilize Western financial institutions. A leading UK cyber security expert told the Times: “Make no mistake, the UK’s critical infrastructure is under attack. The threat is advanced and persistent.”
PHILIPPINES
Economy grew 7.3 percent
The economy has galloped to its highest annual growth in more than two decades, expanding 7.3 percent last year on strong foreign trade and election spending. Head of the government’s statistical board Romulo Virola said yesterday the rise surpassed official growth projections of 5 percent to 6 percent. The economy grew only 1.1 percent in 2009, hit by the global financial crisis. Virola said expansion in industry supported by growth in the services sector propelled the economy in the first half. Agriculture, which employs four in every 10 Filipinos, also recovered in the last three months after four consecutive quarters of decline due to a dry spell.
MANUFACTURING
S Korean output up 2.8%
South Korea’s industrial output grew faster than expected in December thanks to strong exports of computer chips and cars, official figures showed yesterday. Mining and manufacturing output rose 2.8 percent in December from a month earlier, Statistics Korea said, faster than the 1.6 percent increase forecast by economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires. In November, it rose month-on-month by a revised 1.5 percent. The December figure was up 9.8 percent from December 2009, compared with November’s revised 10.7 percent year-on-year increase. For the whole of last year, industrial production increased 16.7 percent. Figures released last week showed last year’s economic growth at an eight-year high of 6.1 percent, while the government expects growth of around 5 percent this year.
AVIATION
Ryanair on track to hit target
Europe’s biggest low-cost airline Ryanair reaffirmed its full-year profit target yesterday after rising passenger numbers and average fares helped offset disruption from strike action and bad weather. The Irish airline said it was on track to make a full-year net profit toward the upper end of its 380 million euro (US$517 million) to 400 million euro target range. Ryanair said it made a net loss of 10 million euros in the third quarter to the end of December, compared with an 11 million euro loss a year earlier.
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
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San