ELECTRONICS
Lower phone sales hit LG
LG Electronics Inc, the world’s third-largest maker of mobile phones, reported a wider-than-estimated quarterly loss as sales of phones missed forecasts and earnings dropped at its flat-panel unit. LG had a net loss of 414 billion won (US$367 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, it said in a statement yesterday. The Seoul-based phone maker had a profit of 7.6 billion won in the third quarter last year. The company had an operating loss of 32 billion won, narrower than a loss of 185.2 billion won a year ago.
TECHNOLOGY
Hitachi raises profit forecast
Japanese high-tech firm Hitachi Ltd yesterday revised its half-year net profit forecast five times higher, citing a smooth recovery from the March earthquake and tsunami. Hitachi now estimates its net profit for the six months to Sept. 30 at ¥50 billion (US$658 million), up from a previous forecast of ¥10 billion. The company also raised its projection of operating profit to ¥170 billion from ¥100 billion and sales to ¥4.55 trillion from ¥4.40 trillion.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Merck sees income grow
Pharmaceutical and biotech equipment company Merck & Co said yesterday its net income rose 7.5 percent to 227 million euros (US$315 million) in the third quarter as sales of key drugs increased. The maker of cancer drug Erbitux said that revenues rose 3.8 percent despite a difficult sales environment in which governments are trying to reduce healthcare expenditure. Sales of Erbitux rose 4.7 percent in the third quarter on growth in emerging markets, while sales for multiple sclerosis drug Rebif rose 8.4 percent.
AUTOMAKERS
French giant to cut costs
French giant PSA Peugeot Citroen yesterday announced a 800 million euros cost-cutting plan for next year that is expected to include layoffs amid a stagnating European car market. The firm, France’s largest automaker and Europe’s second-largest, employs more than 205,000 people worldwide, including 100,000 in France. The plan comes as it announced that sales in its cars division were down 1.6 percent.
INTERNET
Groupon to set IPO price
Groupon Inc is seeking a valuation of about 5 times projected sales next year in its initial public offering (IPO), people familiar with the plans said, making it more expensive than Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp. Advisers to Groupon based the asking price for the IPO on a projection that the company would have sales of about US$2.1 billion next year, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the figures are private. The US$17 midpoint of Groupon’s IPO price range would value the company at US$10.8 billion, or about 5 times that sales prediction.
INTERNET
Google details data requests
The US, India and several European countries are where Google gets the most government demands to turn over information about its users and censor online material. The Internet search leader released the snapshot in a Tuesday update on its Web site. In the US, Google gave federal, state and other agencies what they wanted 93 percent of the time. The US government submitted nearly 6,000 requests affecting more than 11,000 user accounts during the January-to-June period. The Indian government made 1,739 requests about more than 2,400 users, the second-highest total.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”