Japan’s biggest automaker Toyota Motor Corp yesterday said first-half net profits tumbled 71.8 percent from a year earlier because of the impact of the March earthquake and tsunami on production and a strong yen.
Net income for Toyota’s fiscal first half from April-to-September fell to ¥81.5 billion (US$1.04 billion) from ¥289.1 billion a year earlier. It swung to an operating loss of ¥32.6 billion for the six-month period, compared with a year--earlier profit of ¥323.1 billion.
The yen has hit post-World War II highs versus the US dollar and scaled 10-year highs versus the euro in recent months, eroding the repatriated profits of automakers such as Toyota and making their products less competitive.
Photo: Bloomberg
The unit has remained high despite attempts by Japan to weaken it through conducting yen-selling market interventions, raising questions as to whether exporters such as automakers should shift more production abroad.
“In Japan and North America, vehicle sales decreased severely compared to the same period last fiscal year due to the large impact of the Great East Japan Earthquake,” executive vice president Satoshi Ozawa said in a statement.
Global sales of cars, trucks and buses fell 18.5 percent between April 1 and Sept. 30, Toyota said. The impact of Thailand’s worst flooding in decades has set back post-quake recovery efforts.
Toyota yesterday withheld its annual earnings forecast as it continues to assess the impact of flooding in Thailand on its operations.
Toyota has said the Thai floods will mean continued production adjustments at plants in the US, Canada, South Africa, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam as well as Pakistan and Malaysia.
Shares in Toyota Motor fell 1.68 percent to ¥2,503 in Tokyo trade ahead of the earnings announcement.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six