FOOD
Nestle Q1 revenue up 5%
Swiss food and drinks giant Nestle SA reported first-quarter sales of 21.389 billion Swiss francs (US$23.34 billion), up more than 5 percent from sales of SF20.26 billion a year ago. The Vevey, Switzerland-based company said the first-quarter sales reflected strong growth in emerging markets, despite low consumer confidence amid financial crises in developed countries. Nestle CEO Paul Bulcke said that “as anticipated, 2012 is already confirming itself to be a challenging year ... [but] our past and present investments, and continuing innovation, have enabled us to deliver good growth in the first quarter.”
STEEL
POSCO Q1 profit down 42%
South Korea’s POSCO, the world’s third-largest steelmaker by output, yesterday said first-quarter net profit dropped 42 percent year-on-year due to price cuts and higher raw material costs. Net profit was 539 billion won (US$473 million) for January-March, compared with 927 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Price discounts owing to slowing demand amid the global economic turmoil were the main factor squeezing margins, spokesman Chung Jae-woong said. Operating profit fell 54 percent to 422 billion won, from 921 billion a year earlier, while sales rose 3.8 percent to 9.460 trillion won.
BANKING
Bank of America improving
Bank of America Corp on Thursday reported better-than-expected first-quarter earnings, in the latest sign that the No. 2 US bank is moving past the mortgage troubles that have hobbled it since the financial crisis. First-quarter net income was US$653 million, or US$0.03 a share, down from US$2.05 billion, or US0.17 per share, a year earlier. The bank reported charges of US$4.8 billion related to changes in the value of its debt, partially offset by gains of US$2.8 billion from equity investments and debt-related transactions. Excluding debt valuation adjustments, earnings were US$0.31 a share.
TELECOMS
CWW awaits Vodafone offer
Cable & Wireless Worldwide PLC (CWW) said on Thursday it had secured a four-day extension to allow Vodafone to make an offer for the international telecoms company. The company said in a statement that Britain’s takeover regulator had pushed the deadline for any potential bid back from Thursday at 5pm until Monday noon. “There can be no certainty that any offer will be made, nor as to the terms of any offer,” the statement added. CWW, created in 2010 following a demerger, operates a cable network serving 150 countries directly or through local partners, supplying telecoms services to businesses and public sector bodies. The company had been courted by two suitors — Tata Communications Ltd and Vodafone Group PLC — but Tata ruled itself out of the running on Wednesday, sending CWW shares plunging.
MUSIC
EU greenlights EMI sale
The EU’s competition regulator on Thursday approved a deal by Sony/ATV and other investors to buy part of the famous British music company EMI Group Ltd. Sony/ATV, a joint venture between Sony Corp and the Michael Jackson estate, and several investment funds, including United Arab Emirates-based Mubadala Development Co, jointly offered US$2.2 billion in November for EMI Music’s publishing businesses. EMI’s publishing arm manages the rights to songs of popular artists such as Amy Winehouse, Regina Spektor and Rihanna.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San