ENTERTAINMENT
Nintendo profit skyrockets
Japanese video game giant Nintendo Co yesterday said net profit in the period of April to December last year soared six-fold to US$504 million as a sharply weaker yen boosted its bottom line and helped offset slowing sales. For the fiscal year to March 31, the Kyoto-based company also raised its annual net profit forecast to ¥30 billion (US$254 million), from an earlier ¥20 billion estimate, but the Super Mario creator trimmed sales and operating profit forecasts. Between April and December last year, Nintendo posted a ¥59.5 billion net profit with operating income swinging to ¥31.6 billion — reversing a loss in the previous year. Sales came in at ¥442.9 billion, down 11.3 percent from the previous year.
SEMICONDUCTORS
SK Hynix Q4 profit doubles
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix Inc yesterday said its profits more than doubled in the fourth quarter to a record high, thanks to the soaring popularity of new mobile devices such as Apple Inc’s iPhone. Net profit for October to December last year amounted to 1.6 trillion won (US$1.48 billion), up 106 percent from a year ago, the Icheon-based company said in a statement. SK Hynix — which is Apple’s second largest chip supplier — is one of the world’s largest makers of memory chips used for personal computers, servers and mobile devices. SK Hynix said shipments of its NAND flash chips used for mobile handsets rose 30 percent due to “growing demand boosted by the launch of new mobile devices.” The company also saw annual net profit for last year hit a record of 4.2 trillion won, up nearly 50 percent from a year ago.
ECONOMY
Investment continues slide
US business investment spending last month fell for a fourth straight month, a sign that slowing global growth might be weighing on the US economy, but consumers remained upbeat and new home sales last month hit their highest level since June 2008. “The drop in [capital spending] will weigh on growth, though stronger consumer spending should keep GDP from slowing too much,” said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York. The US Department of Commerce said non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, dropped 0.6 percent last month after a similar decline in November last year. Orders for these so-called core capital goods started falling in September last year, the longest downward stretch since 2012.
GERMANY
Confidence hits 14-year high
Consumer confidence is at its highest since late 2001, as rising optimism over the economy and income expectations persuade shoppers to open their wallets, a poll found yesterday. “Consumers are noticeably more confident as they enter the new year and the consumer climate is continuing to improve,” market research company GfK Group said in a statement. “Economic and income expectations, as well as the propensity to spend have all increased tangibly.” Looking ahead to next month, GfK’s headline household confidence index was forecast to rise to 9.3 points next month from 9 points this month. “That is the highest level since November 2001. The upward trend is continuing in the consumer climate. The outlook for consumer spending is looking increasingly brighter,” GfK said.
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