NEC Corp, the Japanese computer maker that formed a venture with Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) last year, will cut 10,000 jobs, about 8.6 percent of its work force, after forecasting a third annual loss in four years.
NEC will eliminate about 7,000 jobs in Japan and take a ¥40 billion (US$516 million) charge to cover the cost of restructuring and job cuts, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement yesterday.
The other 3,000 job eliminations will be from operations outside Japan.
The cuts will begin as early as March 31, NEC president Nobuhiro Endo told reporters in Tokyo yesterday.
The computer manufacturer forecast a ¥100 billion annual loss, compared with a previous outlook for a profit of ¥15 billion, as slower growth globally and in Japan trimmed demand, according to the statement.
It revised its sales forecast for the full year downward to ¥3.1 trillion, a 0.5 percent drop from the previous fiscal year, as “challenging business conditions continue”.
NEC was unchanged at ¥168 as of the 3pm close of trading in Tokyo, compared with a 0.4 percent decline for the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average. The shares lost 36 percent last year compared with a 29 percent drop for rival Japanese computer maker Fujitsu Ltd.
NEC won’t pay a year-end dividend, according to the statement.
The company said the job losses would cost it ¥40 billion this fiscal year, but were expected to generate savings of well more than that amount in the following two years.
It would open a new capacitor factory in Thailand after its current plant suffered “serious damage” in last year’s floods, it added.
The Tokyo-based company had 115,840 employees at the end of March last year, compared with 154,786 in fiscal year 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Net loss widened to ¥86.5 billion in the three months ended Dec. 31, from ¥26.5 billion a year earlier. Sales fell 6.7 percent to ¥672 billion.
Last year, Lenovo, China’s biggest personal computer maker, agreed to invest US$175 million to form a venture with NEC to expand in Japan.
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