BANKING
Banco Santander’s profits fall
Banco Santander says its first-quarter profits fell 24 percent compared with a year earlier, mainly because of a sharp rise in provisions for non-performing loans. The eurozone’s largest bank as measured by market capitalization said its net profit in the January-March period was 1.6 billion euros (US$2.1 billion). The provisions set aside were 3.1 billion euros, up 51 percent from the same quarter of last year. The bank said it had achieved a core capital ratio of 9.11 percent. European regulators had demanded that banks bring this ratio above 9 percent by June.
BANKING
Barclays reports profit rise
Barclays posted a 22 percent rise in first-quarter profit, ahead of market forecasts, as a strong rebound in revenue from its investment banking arm and a drop in bad debt countered increased compensation for insurance mis-selling. The British bank reported an adjusted pretax profit of £2.45 billion (US$3.96 billion) in the three months to end-March, up from £2 billion a year ago and above the average forecast of £2 billion from a poll of analysts supplied by the company. The bank said its Core Tier 1 ration remained strong at 10.9 percent, compared with 11 percent at the end of last year.
AUTOMAKERS
Chrysler’s Q1 profit jumps
The US automaker Chrysler, which is controlled by Fiat of Italy, yesterday reported a four-fold leap in first quarter profit to US$473 million from US$116 million in the same period a year earlier. Chrysler also confirmed its full-year target of about US$65 billion in sales and a net profit of about US$1.5 billion, a Fiat statement said. The automaker also saw a 25 percent rise in sales to US$16.359 billion and a 55 percent rise in core operating profit to US$740 million.
MANUFACTURING
Unilever raises dividend
Unilever PLC, maker of Lipton teas, Dove soaps and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, has raised its quarterly dividend after reporting a 12 percent gain in revenue, beating market forecasts. Unilever said yesterday that total income in the first three months of the year was 12.1 billion euros, helped by the acquisitions of US-based Alberto Culver and Russian cosmetics maker Kalina. Underlying sales, which strip out the impact of acquisitions and disposals, were up 8.4 percent.
TECHNOLOGY
Nintendo shows yearly loss
Nintendo Co sank into a ¥43.2 billion (US$532.5 million) loss for the fiscal year just ended, as weak sales of the Wii home console and the strong yen eroded earnings. Kyoto-based Nintendo, once the star of video games with franchises like Pokemon and Super Mario, has seen its glory fade with the advent of smartphones that are wooing away casual gamers. Nintendo, which did not break down quarterly numbers, had reported a ¥77.6 billion profit the previous fiscal year.
FUEL
Shell’s net profit shrinks
Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell said yesterday that its net profit sank by almost 10 percent to US$9.89 billion in the first quarter. Profit after tax for the year-earlier period had stood at US$10.98 billion, the Anglo-Dutch company said in a results statement. Revenues increased by 9 percent to US$119.92 billion. However, Shell added that adjusted net profits, stripping out movements in the value of inventories and other non-operating items, rallied by 15.7 percent to US$7.28 billion in the first quarter or three months to March 31.
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