TOYMAKERS
Mattel’s CEO resigns
US toymaker Mattel Inc replaced its chief executive on Monday after disappointing sales for the Christmas holiday season sent net income plunging. Mattel said Bryan Stockton had resigned as chairman and chief executive and resigned from the company’s board. Christopher Sinclair, a Mattel board member and veteran executive of the food industry, was named chairman and interim CEO. Mattel said preliminary results for the fourth quarter showed sales fell 5.7 percent to US$1.99 billion from a year earlier, and earnings per share dropped 58.9 percent to US$0.44. For the full year, worldwide sales fell 7.1 percent to US$6.02 billion, and earnings per share dropped 43.8 percent to US$1.45.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis expecting growth
Novartis AG, the world’s biggest drugmaker by sales, said revenue growth will resume this year, with earnings gains exceeding sales increases, after reporting fourth-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates. Net sales will rise by a mid-single-digit percentage with core operating income jumping by a high single-digit rate, Basel, Switzerland-based Novartis said in a statement yesterday. Fourth quarter net income excluding some items rose to US$2.91 billion, or US$1.21 per share, from a revised US$2.89 billion, or US$1.18, Novartis said in the statement. Sales in the three-month period fell 2 percent to US$14.6 billion.
SEMICONDUCTORS
TI forecasts strong Q1
Texas Instruments Inc (TI) forecast first-quarter revenue that might exceed analysts’ estimates, as demand for chips used in cars and industrial equipment systems fueled a return to sales growth last year. Net income will be US$0.57 to US$0.67 per share on sales of US$3.07 billion to US$3.33 billion, the maker of analog semiconductors said in a statement on Monday. That compares with analysts’ average estimates for profit of US$0.62 on revenue of US$3.19 billion. Fourth quarter net income was US$825 million, or US$0.76 per share, compared with US$511 million, or US$0.46 per share, a year earlier. Revenue was US$3.27 billion, compared with US$3.03 billion in the same period a year earlier.
ENERGY
Sharp to sell US solar unit
Sharp Corp is near an agreement to sell its Recurrent Energy solar unit in the US, according to a person familiar with the matter. A deal might be announced soon at a price above Sharp’s purchase price for the business, the person said, asking not to be identified because the details are private. The Japanese electronics maker paid US$305 million for San Francisco-based Recurrent in 2010. Sharp has been shopping Recurrent since at least September last year as it steps back from the solar industry. The Osaka-based company stopped making panels in the US and UK last year, and pulled out of an Italian panel-manufacturing joint venture.
INTERNET
Facebook testing ‘lite’ app
Facebook Inc said on Monday it is testing a lightweight version of its mobile app for mobile phones with poor-quality Internet connections in emerging markets. A spokesman said in an e-mail that the “Facebook Lite” Android app is designed “for people on 2G [second-generation] connections or in areas of limited Internet accessibility.” The “lite” version can allow users with low-cost Android handsets to quickly load Facebook feeds and photos.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last