FINANCE
S&P cuts Russia’s rating
The Standard & Poor’s (S&P) credit agency yesterday cut Russia’s credit rating for the first time in more than five years, citing the capital flight and risk to investment in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. Russia’s economic growth slowed to 0.8 percent in the first quarter, sharply worse than earlier forecast while spooked investors pulled about US$70 billion out of the country — more than in all of last year. However, the cut in Russia’s rating from “BBB” to “BBB-” is the most tangible economic result of Russia’s policies toward Ukraine so far. “BBB-” is just a step above a speculative or non-investment grade.
TELECOMS
Nokia excludes India plant
Nokia Oyj will exclude its India phone factory from a 5.44 billion euro (US$7.5 billion) agreement to sell its mobile phone business to Microsoft Corp amid a legal battle over a tax dispute in the country. “We are leaving out the plant because of the tax issues,” Poonam Kaul, a Nokia India spokeswoman, said by telephone on Thursday. The plant, one of the Espoo, Finland-based company’s largest phone factories, will make products for Microsoft as part of a servicing agreement, Kaul said.
INTERNET
Baidu profit surges 24.1%
Baidu Inc (百度), operator of China’s most popular Internet search engine, says its quarterly profit jumped 24.1 percent over a year earlier as its mobile business grew. The Beijing-based company yesterday said it earned 2.5 billion yuan (US$407.8 million) in the three months ending March 31. Revenue rose 59.1 percent to 9.5 billion yuan. In a statement, chairman Robin Li (李彥宏) cited success in search and app distribution for the growth and said Baidu wants to expand in new areas such as location-based services.
INTERNET
Amazon beats expectations
Amazon.com Inc posted higher-than-expected sales growth in the first quarter and boosted its investments in technology, content and warehouses as the e-commerce giant branches out into new businesses. Revenue rose 23 percent from a year ago to US$19.74 billion, more than the average analyst estimate of US$19.4 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The Seattle-based company reported net income of US$108 million, or US$0.23 per share. That compares with net income of US$82 million, or US$0.18 per share last year. Analysts expected US$0.21 per share, according to FactSet.
AUTOMAKERS
Honda profit jumps 56.4%
Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co yesterday said its fiscal year net profit soared to US$5.6 billion, thanks to brisk sales and a weaker yen. For the year to March, Honda said it booked a net profit of ¥574 billion, up 56.4 percent from a year earlier, while revenue rose about 20 percent to ¥11.84 trillion. The company forecast a profit of ¥595 billion for the current year to March 2015.
GAMBLING
Bookmaker to reduce shops
William Hill PLC yesterday said it would close 109 of its British betting shops this year, blaming the decision on a tax increase on high stakes gambling machines. The firm, Britain’s largest bookmaker, said operating profit fell 14 percent in the first quarter of the year, hit by big payouts to gamblers on two weekends on which many of the top soccer sides had won. William Hill said the closure of the betting shops would put 420 jobs at risk and result in exceptional costs of up to £24 million (US$40.3 million).
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],”
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
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