ENERGY
Shell’s profit nearly doubles
Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe’s largest oil firm, yesterday said that second-quarter profits nearly doubled as higher oil prices and one-time gains offset a drop in production. Its net profit of US$8.66 billion was up from US$4.39 billion a year earlier. The figure was helped by a US$1.44 billion gain booked on a mix of tax credits, trading activities and the sale of businesses. Shell’s profit at its current cost of supplies was US$6.55 billion excluding one-time gains, up from US$4.21 billion a year earlier.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai Q2 profit rose 37%
South Korea’s Hyundai Motor yesterday said its second-quarter net profit rose 37.3 percent year-on-year, helped by brisk sales of fuel-efficient vehicles abroad and stronger contributions from affiliates. Net profit stood at 2.3 trillion won (US$2.18 billion) in the April-June period, compared with 1.68 trillion won a year earlier. Sales rose 19.1 percent to 20.09 trillion won, while operating profit rose 21.7 percent to 2.12 trillion won. The company sold 1.03 million cars in the three-month period, up 12.7 percent from a year ago.
GAMING
Nintendo slides into red
Japan’s Nintendo yesterday reported a first-quarter loss and lowered its annual forecast, citing the strong yen, a lack of new hit game titles and research and marketing costs. The gaming giant booked a net loss of ¥25.5 billion (US$327.9 million) for the April-June quarter and cut its forecast for the year ending March to a net profit of ¥20 billion, down 74.2 percent from last year. Nintendo also said it would slash the price of its 3DS handheld console, released in February at ¥25,000, to ¥15,000, from Aug. 11 in Japan, to be followed by similar cuts in foreign markets by September.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day