PETROLEUM
Schlumberger lays off 9,000
Oil services company Schlumberger Ltd on Thursday said it was firing 9,000 workers due to plunging oil prices that have forced petroleum companies to cut drilling budgets. Schlumberger disclosed the job cuts as it reported sharply lower fourth-quarter earnings in the wake of a more than 50 percent fall in oil prices since June last year. The job cuts account for about 7.5 percent of Schlumberger’s global workforce. Schlumberger’s fourth-quarter earnings came in at US$302 million, down 82 percent from the year-ago level. Revenues rose 6.2 percent to US$12.6 billion. The large drop was due to US$1.8 billion in a series of one-time charges related to the steep fall in commodity prices.
PUERTO RICO
Garcia approves oil tax hike
Puerto Rico’s governor signed a law on Thursday that will increase the excise tax on a barrel of crude oil by 68 percent to help generate funds and sell an anticipated US$2.9 billion in bonds. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said he plans to file additional legislation to slightly amend the new law and help the government access financial markets. Garcia called a special session on the issue late last year and legislators passed the measure. He had until today to sign it. The tax per barrel would increase from US$9.25 to US$15.50 and generate about US$178 million a year.
GERMANY
GDP growth accelerates
Germany’s economy accelerated in the final quarter of last year as consumer spending picked up, according to data published on Thursday, a sign that the largest economy in the eurozone could perform moderately better than expected this year. GDP rose 0.25 percent from the third quarter, according to a preliminary estimate by the Federal Statistical Office. For all of last year, growth was 1.5 percent, in line with analyst estimates, after expanding just 0.1 percent a year earlier. Employment rose to a high, and consumers spent more, the statistics office said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Population to grow by 14%
Britain’s population may grow by 14 percent over the next two decades, driven by immigration and a birth rate above the European average, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said yesterday in an estimate posted on its Web site. Immigration and the higher fertility rate of non-UK born women is projected to push the British population to 73.3 million in 2037 from 64.1 million in 2013, the ONS said. That could leave Britain, which has seen its population grow from 56.3 million in 1980, poised to overtake Germany as Europe’s most populous country.
RETAIL
Carrefour hits sales forecast
Carrefour SA reported fourth-quarter sales in line with analysts’ estimates, led by growth in Latin America. Revenue advanced 2 percent to 22.6 billion euros (US$26.3 billion), the French firm said yesterday in a statement. Sales climbed 3.1 percent on a like-for-like basis, excluding gasoline and calendar effects. In Brazil, where like-for-like sales rose 10 percent, excluding gasoline and calendar effects, the retailer has pledged to boost investment substantially after selling a stake in its local unit last month. Carrefour said last year’s recurring operating income will be in line with 2.38 billion euros as expected.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to