China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s only integrated steel maker, yesterday said its third-quarter pretax profit dropped 29.14 percent from the previous quarter because of lower sales amid lackluster market demand.
Pretax profit fell to NT$2.06 billion (US$70.1 million) from NT$2.91 billion in the second quarter, the Siaogang District (小港), Greater Kaohsiung-based company said in an e-mailed statement.
Last quarter’s figure was lower than Fubon Securities Investment Services Co’s (富邦投顧) forecast of NT$2.72 billion.
Lower investment gains also contributed to the decline in pretax profit in the July-to-September quarter. China Steel booked NT$23 million in investment gains in the third quarter, which was lower than the previous quarter’s NT$1.64 billion, the company said in its statement.
However, on an annual basis, third-quarter pretax profit fell 61.85 percent from the NT$5.4 billion posted a year earlier, company data showed.
China Steel swung into profit in the second quarter from the first quarter, but it is unlikely to substantially increase profitability in the short term as the global economy remains weak and oversupply in China persists, Fubon Securities analyst Roger Lee said in a note to clients.
However, Lee said lower coking coal and iron ore prices in the July-to-August period would likely be reflected in the company’s cost structure this quarter and next quarter, boosting China Steel’s gross margins to 7 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively, from 6.7 percent in the third quarter and 5.1 percent in the second quarter.
Cumulative pretax income in the first nine months reached NT$3.99 billion, down 82.44 percent from NT$22.71 billion a year earlier. Pretax earnings per share came in at NT$0.26 in this period, compared with NT$1.51 per share the year before, company data showed.
In the statement, China Steel said its revenue fell 12.14 percent to NT$50.14 billion in the third quarter from the second quarter, while sales volume was 2.14 million tonnes in the third quarter, down 8.8 percent sequentially.
Share price in CSC rose 1.35 percent to NT$26.35 yesterday before the company disclosed the quarterly figures, but it has declined 9.72 percent so far this year.
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
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day