STEELMAKERS
Nippon slashes forecast
Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp yesterday said its nine-month net profit dropped 20.3 percent as it slashed its full-year profit forecast, citing the impact of plunging oil prices on a Brazilian unit. The Tokyo-based company, one of the world’s biggest steelmakers, said its earnings for the period of April to December last year were ¥153.6 billion (US$1.3 billion), while sales rose 3.6 percent to ¥4.18 trillion. Nippon Steel blamed part of the profit slump on a ¥68.6 billion extraordinary loss that it took due to an unexpected slowdown at its seamless pipe maker Vallourec & Sumitomo Tubos do Brasil (VSB), which supplies the oil and gas market. Nippon Steel also cut its net profit forecast for the fiscal year to March to ¥180 billion, from an earlier estimate of ¥250 billion.
TECHNOLOGY
Facebook spending rises
Facebook Inc founder Mark Zuckerberg is ramping up spending to chase opportunities in messaging and mobile advertising as sales growth slows at Facebook’s main social-networking service. The company said on Wednesday that spending is set to jump 55 percent to 70 percent this year, narrower than the 50 percent to 75 percent range that it projected in October last year. Zuckerberg has said Facebook is investing in messaging, advertising across the Internet, hiring and new technologies such as artificial intelligence. Total expenses in the fourth quarter soared 87 percent to US$2.72 billion. That impacted profit, with the company reporting an operating margin of 29 percent, compared with 44 percent a year earlier. Sales totaled US$3.85 billion, up 49 percent and slower than the 63 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2013.
BANKING
Deutsche profits surprise
Deutsche Bank AG posted a surprise fourth-quarter profit as provisions for fines and legal settlements declined. Net income in the last three months of last year was 438 million euros (US$495 million), compared with a loss of 1.36 billion euros in the same period a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expected a loss of 341 million euros, on average. Litigation costs were 207 million euros compared with 1.11 billion euros in the fourth quarter of 2013. Deutsche Bank raised cash from investors last year to raise capital and bolster returns by seeking to expand the debt trading business as rivals exit. Deutsche Bank co-chief executive officers Anshu Jain and Juergen Fitschen are preparing a fresh strategy after legal costs and stricter regulation curbed profitability. The Frankfurt-based lender was the worst performing large bank stock last year.
TECHNOLOGY
LG sees net profit soar
South Korea’s LG Electronics yesterday said its net profit last year soared 125 percent, boosted by surging sales of its flagship smartphones and television sets. Net income reached 501.3 billion won (US$457 million) last year, compared with 222.7 billion won a year earlier. Operating profit, meanwhile, was up 46 percent to 1.82 trillion won, with sales rising 4 percent to 59 trillion won. The company attributed its strong bottom line to sales of its TV sets and flagship G-series smartphones. The annual profit surge came despite a 205.7 billion won net loss in the fourth quarter — the result of writing off its plasma TV operations. Fourth-quarter operating profit, however, soared 28 percent year-on-year to 275.1 billion won, and sales rose 4.9 percent to 15.3 trillion won.
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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last