AIRLINES
Ryanair orders 175 new jets
Irish low-cost airline Ryanair on Tuesday announced an order for 175 Boeing Co 737-800 airplanes in a major fleet expansion three weeks after the EU blocked its takeover of rival Aer Lingus. The massive order was put at US$15.6 billion at Boeing catalog prices, one of the US aerospace giant’s largest orders ever, though discounts could bring the total value to much less than that. Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said the planes were to be delivered between next year and 2018, at a cost similar to that of Ryanair’s 2005 Boeing order. Ryanair has an all-Boeing 737 fleet.
TECHNOLOGY
Yahoo mulls video site bid
The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that Yahoo Inc may take a controlling interest in France-based video-sharing Web site Dailymotion. Yahoo could buy as much as 75 percent of Dailymotion from France Telecom in what would be the Internet pioneer’s biggest acquisition under chief executive officer Marissa Mayer, the Journal said. Dailymotion is a YouTube-style Web site that industry tracker comScore rated at the start of this year as the 12th-largest video-sharing site with about 116 million users. Dailymotion had an estimated value of US$300 million.
BRAZIL
Petrobras plans investments
State-run oil company Petrobras said on Tuesday it will invest US$236.7 billion from this year through 2017, with most of the amount earmarked for exploration and production. The company said in a conference call with investors and analysts that US$147.5 billion, or 62 percent of the total, will be spent on exploration and production over the next five years. Petrobras said US$64.8 billion will be spent on refining, while US$9.9 billion will go to natural gas and energy projects.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford reaches worker deal
US automaker Ford Motor Co said on Tuesday that it would pay at least US$750 million to workers being let go as it closes its plant in Genk, Belgium, after reaching an agreement with unions. Ford, which has suffered heavy losses in Europe, announced in October last year it would shutter the Genk plant at the end of next year, wiping out more than 10,000 direct and indirect jobs.
UNITED STATES
Lockheed announces layoffs
Lockheed Martin Corp said on Tuesday 243 of 4,000 mid-level managers in its information systems and global solutions division have accepted voluntary layoffs, effective tomorrow. Company spokeswoman Mary Phillips said Lockheed offered severance packages last month to 4,000 mid-level managers in the division, which has a total of 30,000 employees. Of those, 260 offered to leave, and 243 were approved. She said the company was not planning additional layoffs.
UNITED STATES
Low-income workers gloomy
Lower-income workers have posted the biggest job gains since the deep 2007 to 2009 recession, but few are bragging. A survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that those earning US$35,000 or less annually are generally pessimistic about their finances and career prospects. Many see themselves as worse off now than during the recession. The survey revealed that many people at the lowest rung in the workplace view their jobs as a dead end. Half say they are “not too” or “not at all” confident that their current jobs will help them achieve long-term career goals.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the