MEDIA
Olympic boost to Comcast
Comcast Corp posted higher quarterly profit on Friday after its NBC Universal media unit scored US$1.2 billion in additional revenue from its London Olympics coverage. The leading US cable TV operator also benefited from adding Internet users. Because of the Olympics, “broadcast actually made money for the first time in a long time,” Macquarie analyst Amy Yong said. The London Olympics coverage helped NBC Universal’s revenue climb more than 30 percent to US$6.8 billion from a year earlier. The Games drew a record audience that averaged 31.3 million viewers per night, 12 percent above the Beijing Olympics. With the strong ratings performance over the summer, Comcast said it would at least break even on its US$1.18 billion deal for the London Olympics. Analysts initially expected the company to lose money on the Olympics.
AUSTRALIA
Rating remains stable
Treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday welcomed a decision by ratings agency Fitch to affirm the country’s “AAA” credit rating, days after his mid-year economic review lowered this year’s growth forecast. The affirmation overnight of the “AAA” rating with a stable outlook comes after the government last week cut its growth and budget surplus forecasts as worsening global conditions hurt revenues in the mining-driven economy. “We manage our economy in the interests of working people and we’ve had a big tick from the rating agencies overnight,” Swan said. In a mid-year economic review released on Monday, Swan said real GDP growth was forecast at 3 percent this fiscal year — from 3.25 percent predicted in May — and shaved the budget surplus back to A$1.1 billion (US$1.14 billion).
AUTOMAKERS
Toyota widens lead over GM
Toyota has widened its global sales lead over General Motors (GM) after bouncing back from a series of natural disasters. The company said on Friday it sold 7.4 million vehicles globally in the first nine months of this year — 450,000 more than General Motors. While Toyota’s sales rose 28 percent in that period, GM’s rose 2.5 percent, to 6.95 million cars and light-duty trucks. Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid, Camry sedan and Lexus luxury models, had planned to sell 1 million vehicles in China this year. However, the company no longer expects to reach that number. It has not given a new target. Toyota’s vehicle sales in China dropped to 44,100 vehicles last month, from 86,000 a year earlier, because of a territorial dispute with Japan. In August, Toyota sold 75,280 vehicles in China, down 15 percent from the same month last year.
SPAIN
Bankia outlines losses
Ruined Spanish banking giant Bankia suffered more than 7 billion euros (US$9.05 billion) in losses in the first nine months of this year, it said on Friday. The group at the heart of Spain’s financial crisis said in a statement that it had to make 11.485 billion euros in provisions as it cleaned up its balance sheet, stricken by masses of bad loans. It recorded a net loss of 2.6 billion euros in the third quarter, after reporting for the previous quarter a loss of 4.45 billion euros. Total losses for January to September were 7.053 billion euros. The bank said it would need a total of 23.5 billion euros to salvage its balance sheet.
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],”