TECHNOLOGY
IBM profit fell 6% in Q4
IBM Corp’s profit beat analysts’ estimates in the fourth quarter, with adjusted earnings, excluding some items, dropping 6 percent from a year earlier to US$5.81 a share as the company focused on cutting costs, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Revenue from continuing operations fell for the 11th-straight quarter, declining 12 percent to US$24.1 billion, the company said. IBM forecast operating earnings for this year of US$15.75 to US$16.50 a share — on the low end of analysts’ estimates, which predicted US$16.50 on average.
INTERNET
Netflix users, profits grow
Streaming video giant Netflix on Tuesday said its global membership swelled to 57.4 million at the end of last year, capping a quarter that also saw profits grow. Netflix said it added 4.3 million subscribers in the past quarter and 13 million for the year. Net profit for the quarter jumped to US$83 million compared with US$48 million a year earlier and US$59 million in the prior quarter. Revenue hit US$1.3 billion in the quarter compared with US$962 million a year ago.
BANKING
Morgan Stanley profit rises
Morgan Stanley’s fourth-quarter profit rose as the investment bank recovered from huge legal expenses last year, but it suffered from the same trading slowdowns at other banks and fell short of Wall Street expectations. The bank on Tuesday said it earned US$1.05 billion, or US$0.47 a share, in the quarter, compared with US$95 million, or US$0.02 a share, a year earlier. Revenue totaled US$7.76 billion, down from US$7.84 billion in the same period a year earlier.
AIRLINES
Delta falls on hedging hit
Delta Air Lines Inc reported a fourth-quarter loss because falling oil prices led it to write down the value of its fuel-hedging contracts, but the airline’s results were still better than Wall Street expected. The company on Tuesday reported a US$712 million loss after taking US$1.4 billion in special charges, mostly hedging losses. Excluding those items, Delta would have earned US$649 million, or US$0.78 per share.
HEALTHCARE
Johnson sees 2015 profit dip
Johnson & Johnson, the world’s biggest maker of healthcare products, on Tuesday forecast lower earnings for this year, as competition cuts into revenue for some of its best-selling drugs. The shares slumped the most in three months. Adjusted profit this year is expected to reach US$6.12 to US$6.27 a share, the company said. That figure excludes an estimated charge of US$0.32 a share for intangible amortization costs. Incorporating that figure, this year’s earnings are expected to be US$5.80 to US$5.95 a share, compared with last year’s adjusted profit of US$5.97 a share.
BEVERAGES
SABMiller sales fall
SABMiller PLC, the world’s No. 2 brewer, reported an unexpected drop in third-quarter beer volume as sales were held back by falling demand in China and a decline in Colombia, its biggest market. So-called organic lager volume fell 1 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31, the London-based company said in a statement yesterday. SABMiller, the maker of Grolsch and Peroni beers, is among European consumer-goods businesses contending with a slowdown in Asia that has compounded sluggish growth in developed markets.
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],”