RARE EARTHS
Chinese firm halts output
China’s biggest rare earths producer has suspended output in an effort to shore up slumping prices of the materials used by makers of mobile phones and other high-tech products. Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Group Hi-tech Co (內蒙古包鋼稀土集團) said in a statement released through the Shanghai Stock Exchange that it suspended production on Tuesday to promote “healthy development” of the rare earths market. It gave no indication when production would resume and phone calls to Baogang were not answered.
AUTOMAKERS
BYD sends cabs to UK
Chinese automaker BYD Co (比亞迪) is sending 50 electric cabs to London in an attempt to boost China’s struggling makers of all-electric vehicles. BYD and London cab company Green Tomato Cars announced this week they will start a trial using 50 of BYD’s e6 sedans late next year. BYD has supplied 300 electric taxis and 200 electric buses being used in the southern city of Shenzhen. The e6 can travel 300km on one charge.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai increases profit
Hyundai Motor Co increased its quarterly net profit by 13 percent to US$2 billion, squeezing overseas capacity to keep sales going despite damaging labour strikes at home. The South Korean firm yesterday, hours after a bleak day for European brands — with Ford announcing a plant closure, Peugeot accepting state aid and Volkswagen posting a big drop in profits — said its July-September net profit rose to 2.17 trillion won, a touch above market forecasts and up on last year’s 1.92 trillion won. The company said it would beat its global sales target of 4.29 million vehicles this year.
TECHNOLOGY
Canon cuts profit forecast
Japanese tech giant Canon yesterday slashed its annual profit forecast again, blaming the global slowdown and a strong yen, as it saw quarterly earnings dive by more than a third. The maker of laser printers and digital cameras said it now expected a net profit of ¥234 billion (US$2.9 billion) in the fiscal year to March, down from the ¥250 billion forecast in July and 290 billion yen in April. Sales for the fiscal year would come in at ¥3.53 trillion instead of ¥3.69 trillion, it said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Firm posts flat profits
Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis AG posted flat third-quarter profits as new drugs offset patent expirations. The Basel-based company said yesterday that its net profit of US$2.48 billion in the July-September quarter was virtually unchanged from the US$2.49 billion recorded in the same period last year. However, sales fell 7 percent to US$13.8 billion, from US$14.8 billion, as the company suffered from the Sept. 21 loss of the US patent on its blockbuster hypertension drug Diovan and a 13 percent decline in net sales at its Sandoz generic division.
BANKING
Bank reports drop in profit
Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse said yesterday that third-quarter net profit plunged 63 percent to 254 million Swiss francs (US$225.6 million). While Credit Suisse said it has already significantly cut costs and improved efficiencies, it announced further it would seek to make an additional SF1 billion in cuts in 2014 and 2015 to take total savings to SF4 billion.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is