SOUTH KOREA
Current account improves
Strong exports caused a jump in the nation’s current account surplus last month from February, despite rising oil and other raw material prices, the central bank said yesterday. The account surplus, the broadest measure of trade with the rest of the world, was US$1.43 billion last month compared to a revised US$1.13 billion in February. The surplus in March last year stood at US$1.20 billion. The account remained in the black for a 13th consecutive month, boosted by robust exports amid the global economic recovery.
TELECOMS
Nokia to outsource Symbian
Nokia will axe 7,000 jobs and outsource its Symbian software development unit to cut 1 billion euros (US$1.46 billion) in costs as it struggles to compete in the smartphone market. Nokia, the world’s largest phone maker by volume, said on Wednesday the move would include laying off 4,000 staff and transferring another 3,000 to services firm Accenture — a total of 12 percent of its phone unit workforce. Accenture is to take over Nokia’s Symbian software activities and will become a primary software partner for future smartphones running on Microsoft’s Windows platform.
AUTOMOBILES
Q1 net profit down at Honda
Japanese auto giant Honda yesterday said net profit for the first quarter of this year fell 38.3 percent from a year earlier due to costs related to last month’s earthquake as well as the strong yen. Net profit for the quarter totaled ¥44.5 billion (US$536 million), the auto giant said. Net profit doubled year-on-year from last year to this year to ¥534.1 billion, but the automaker gave no forecast for the current year as it continue to gauge the impact of the March 11 disasters on production. Honda said quake-related losses totaled about ¥45.7 billion.
CHEMICALS
Bayer posts profit increase
German chemical and pharmaceutical group Bayer posted an 8.4 percent increase in first quarter net profit yesterday, while signaling improvement in its agricultural products division. Bayer, the maker of pain-killer Aspirin, said that net profit rose to 684 million euros (US$1 billion) and also raised its full-year forecast. First quarter sales gained 13.2 percent to 9.415 billion euros and operating profit rose by 4 percent to 1.148 billion.
OIL
Earnings up 60% at Shell
Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell announced a 60 percent increase in first-quarter earnings yesterday as the company benefited from the steep rise in oil in recent months. Net profit rose to US$8.78 billion, up from US$5.48 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Revenues rose 28 percent to US$110 billion.
INTERNET
EBay Q1 profit up 20%
EBay Inc says its first-quarter profit rose 20 percent on reinvigorated growth at its namesake auction site. Late on Wednesday, the company reported net income of US$475.9 million, or US$0.36 per share, compared with US$397.7 million and US$0.30 per share in the first quarter of last year. Excluding special items, eBay earned US$0.47 per share — US$0.01 more than analysts polled by FactSet expected. Revenue rose 16 percent to US$2.5 billion, essentially in line with analyst’s expectations. The company also predicted that its second-quarter revenue could beat Wall Street estimates.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to