TRADE
Japan deficit continues
Japan reported its 20th straight monthly trade deficit last month, as soaring energy imports continued to offset the value of exported goods. The deficit totaled ¥800.3 billion (US$8 billion), up 3.5 percent from a year earlier, government figures released yesterday showed. It was a record deficit for the month of February, but lower than January’s much-larger deficit.
CURRENCY
Lithuania hopes to join euro
Lithuania hopes to follow in the footsteps of Baltic neighbors Estonia and Latvia by joining the eurozone single currency bloc next year, Lithuanian Minister of Finance Rimantas Sadzius said on Tuesday. Lithuania tried to join the now 18-member euro area in 2006-2007, but was blown off track as the global financial crisis gathered pace, plunging the economy into deep recession. Sadzius said the aim is for Lithuania to have completed negotiations by July after the European Commission submits a report on what steps Vilnius must take to ensure it meets the economic requirements for euro entry.
SOFTWARE
Oracle Q3 net profit up
Oracle said on Tuesday its fiscal third-quarter net income rose 2 percent, helped by higher cloud software subscription revenue, but investors wanted more growth and the company’s stock fell in late trading. For the three months through Feb. 28, the business software maker earned US$2.57 billion, or US$0.56 per share, up from US$2.5 billion, or US$0.52 per share, in the same quarter the year before. Revenue rose 4 percent to US$9.31 billion from US$8.96 billion.
TELECOMS
Deutsche Telekom cuts jobs
German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom will cut 4,900 jobs over the next two years from its information technology and consultancy unit T-Systems, the company said on Tuesday. “We will cut 2,700 jobs this year and 2,200 jobs next year in Germany,” a spokesman said, confirming a report by daily Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung. T-Systems generated revenue of about 9.5 billion euros (US$13 billion) last year. The company employs about 50,000 people, but the spokesman said the layoffs were only planned in home-market Germany for now.
SOFTWARE
Adobe subscribers increase
Adobe Systems Inc added online subscribers at a faster-than-projected clip in the fiscal first quarter, as the company attempts to return to growth by selling Internet subscriptions for applications such as Photoshop. The software maker added 405,000 customers for its Creative Cloud Web software, bringing the total to 1.84 million and exceeding analysts’ estimates. Sales dipped less than 1 percent to US$1 billion and profit excluding certain items declined to US$0.30 a share for the period ended Feb. 28, the company said on Tuesday.
TRAVEL
Samsonite profit jumps
US luggage maker Samsonite yesterday said its net profit jumped 18.6 percent last year. However, despite strong worldwide sales, its expansion in China was hit by an official crackdown on corruption. The firm said annual profit reached US$176.1 million last year, up from US$148.4 million in 2012, with net sales hitting a record US$2.04 billion, up 15 percent from the previous year. However, China sales only grew 5.3 percent after years of “stellar” growth, in part due to the crackdown on corruption.
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
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure