Sprint Nextel Corp chief executive officer Dan Hesse agreed to return US$3.25 million of his compensation, which had been increased last year by excluding the costs of adding Apple Inc’s iPhone to the carrier’s network.
The Overland Park, Kansas-based carrier, which sells the iPhone at a loss, originally excluded the device’s cost from last year’s bonus calculations for eligible employees. After “feedback from some shareholders,” Hesse said he would reduce his salary this year to repay the costs associated with the adjustment, according to a filing on Friday.
“I do not want, nor does our Compensation Committee want, to penalize Sprint employees for the company’s investment with Apple,” Hesse said in a letter to Sandra Price, senior vice president of human resources at Sprint, that was part of Friday’s filing.
Hesse’s decision to repay the funds comes amid uncertainty over whether the iPhone will help orchestrate a turnaround at Sprint so it can compete better with rivals AT&T Inc and Verizon Wireless. The company, the third-biggest wireless carrier in the US, reported a wider loss in the first quarter amid contract user defections and has posted annual losses for the past five years.
“Dan enjoys the full support of our board of directors and we appreciate the leadership he has demonstrated as he continues to guide the company through a turnaround in a difficult competitive environment,” Sprint chairman James Hance said in the statement.
For last year, Hesse had received US$11.9 million, a 31 percent increase from a year earlier. He also got stock awards worth US$3.2 million and non-equity incentive plan compensation of US$4.8 million. Shares of Sprint declined 45 percent last year as it posted a loss of US$2.89 billion.
Sprint started carrying the iPhone last year and in the first quarter sold 1.5 million of the devices, helped by its US$99.99-a-month unlimited calling and data plan that Verizon Wireless and AT&T don’t offer. The iPhone also helped boost contract customers’ average monthly bills by 6.6 percent to US$59.88, from a year earlier, as users spent more on data plans.
In the first quarter, sales rose 5.1 percent to US$8.73 billion, ahead of analysts’ estimates as the company’s loss widened to US$0.29 a share from US$0.15 a year earlier.
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],”