TELECOMS
ZTE sues Ericsson unit
Chinese telecom equipment supplier ZTE (中興) said yesterday it was suing a unit of Swedish mobile network giant Ericsson for patent infringement, escalating a legal dispute between the two rivals. ZTE launched legal action on Monday against Ericsson (China) Communications Co Ltd for allegedly breaching its Chinese patents on a range of products involving “core networks, GSM infrastructure and 4G infrastructure.” Ericsson has filed three lawsuits in Europe against ZTE for infringing Ericsson patents on mobile phones and infrastructure, an Ericsson spokesman said earlier this month.
AUTOMOBILES
Ford’s Asian plants slow
Ford Motor Co says that its Asia-Pacific operations may have to slow or stop production later this month because of parts shortages from Japan. The company has had to temporarily halt operations in the US and Europe because of shortages, but this was the first word of possible production cuts in Asia. Ford has 13 plants in its Asia-Pacific region, including eight assembly plants in Taiwan, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, the Philippines and China. Ford said in a regulatory filing on Monday that it expects its operations will be affected beginning the last week of this month and into next month.
AUTOMOBILES
Renault COO demoted
Renault said on Monday that chief operating officer Patrick Pelata will be demoted while three executives in security services will leave the French carmaker in the wake of an industrial espionage fiasco. Pelata’s offer to resign as COO was accepted, but he will stay in the company, the firm said in a statement. Three other top executives will be relieved of their duties while their fate is decided, it said. The announcement came after an extraordinary board meeting at Renault to study an audit committee’s report on the scandal that saw three senior executives wrongfully accused of selling industrial secrets. The meeting also agreed on a deal to compensate the executives falsely accused, Renault said.
OIL
Chevron expects profit boost
Chevron Corp on Monday said it expects to post a higher first-quarter profit than it reported for last year’s fourth quarter, due in part to rising oil prices. It did not offer a specific profit forecast in advance of its quarterly report on April 29. The company said the outlook for its exploration and production arm has been improved by the rise in oil prices, which have soared more than 30 percent since the middle of February amid traders’ concerns that political violence in the Middle East and North Africa could disrupt crude supplies.
METALS
Alcoa misses target
Alcoa Inc reported a first-quarter profit that slightly beat estimates, but its revenue missed Wall Street’s target and its shares dropped 3 percent in after-hours trading on Monday. Revenue in the quarter rose 22 percent to US$5.96 billion, helped by rising metal prices, but it lagged the Wall Street target of US$6.08 billion. Income from continuing operations, excluding special items, was US$0.28 a share, topping analysts’ expectation of US$0.27 a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Net first-quarter earnings were US$308 million, or US$0.27 per share, compared with a net loss of US$201 million, or US$0.20 per share in the same quarter of last year, the company said.
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
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
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
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