TELECOMS
Quake affects Ericsson supply
Top mobile telecom equipment maker Ericsson warned that Japan’s devastating earthquake would hit the supply of components, adding to concerns about a sector already hampered by shortages. “It is reasonable to expect that the events in Japan will affect supply of components, but it is too early to say to what extent,” Ericsson said in a statement yesterday. Ericsson said it did not expect the disaster in Japan to have any material impact on its first quarter sales and it had no reports of injured or missing employees there.
ENTERTAINMENT
Box office revenue plunges
Early estimates indicate a steep drop-off in box office revenue outside the US following the earthquake in Japan. International movie ticket sales plunged 60 percent last weekend from a year earlier, according to Standard & Poor’s Equity Research analyst Tuna Amobi. Amobi notes that Japan is one of Hollywood’s biggest markets, accounting for about 10 percent of international box office revenue. Meanwhile, Warner Entertainment Japan Inc says theaters will stop showing Clint Eastwood’s movie Hereafter, which has scenes depicting the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Sony Pictures is delaying the release in Japan of Battle: Los Angeles.
TELECOMS
China Mobile profits up 3.9%
China Mobile Ltd (中國移動), the world’s biggest phone carrier by subscribers, says profit last year rose 3.9 percent on growing demand for mobile Internet services and as it signed up more customers. The Beijing-based company said yesterday that profit rose to 119.6 billion yuan (US$18.2 billion) last year. Revenue rose 7.3 per cent to 485.2 billion yuan. China Mobile said mobile Internet service was accounted for about a third of revenue last year.
AUTOMOBILES
Porsche revenue rises 59%
German luxury sports car maker Porsche said on Tuesday revenue rose 59 percent in the five months from August to December to a record 3.87 billion euros (US$5.4 billion). The company is making a transition from a fiscal year that runs from Aug. 1 to July 31 to one based on the normal calendar year, as is the case with Volkswagen, ahead of a planned tie-up. Operating profit rose to 688 million euros from 227 million euros in the same period in 2009.
MEDIA
Newspaper ads at 25-year low
Newspaper advertising in the US has sunk to a 25-year low as marketing budgets followed readers to the Internet, where advertising is far cheaper than what publishers have been able to command in print. Advertisers spent US$25.8 billion on newspapers’ print and digital editions last year, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Newspaper Association of America. That’s the lowest amount since 1985, when total newspaper advertising stood at US$25.2 billion. After adjusting for inflation, newspaper advertising now stands at about the same level as nearly 50 years ago.
INTERNET
YouTube buys Green Parrot
Google-owned YouTube said on Tuesday that it has bought an Irish digital video company whose technology can help improve the quality of amateur footage submitted to the video-sharing site. Financial details of the acquisition of Green Parrot Pictures, which was founded by Anil Kokaram, an associate professor at the engineering school of Trinity College in Dublin, were not disclosed.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure