RETAIL
C.banner eyes UK toy store
C.banner International Holdings Ltd (千百度國際控股), a Hong Kong-based women’s footwear retailer, is to buy UK toy shop Hamleys for about £100 million (US$154.94 million), a source with direct knowledge of the deal said yesterday. C.banner is to announce the deal shortly, the source said, declining to be identified because the deal is not yet public. The deal comes as Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visits the UK to promote business ties between China and the UK.
AUTOMAKERS
SUV demand underestimated
Hyundai Motor Co yesterday reported its lowest quarterly earnings in more than five years after underestimating strong demand for SUVs and losing ground to local brands in China. South Korea’s largest automaker said its third-quarter net income was 1.2 trillion won (US$1 billion), slumping more than 25 percent over a year earlier. During the third quarter, sales rose 10 percent to 23.4 trillion won while operating profit dropped 9 percent to 1.5 trillion won, Hyundai said. The latest result marks a seventh straight quarter of earnings decline for the automaker.
BANKING
UK lays down rules
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney on Wednesday said the UK must retain the ability to set its own financial regulations as the EU moves toward closer integration of euro-area economies. Amid the UK’s ongoing debate over its continued membership in the EU, Carney said he was not taking sides, and that the decision is to be made by UK voters. However, he said UK authorities need flexibility to ensure they can regulate Britain’s financial industry. The EU is debating common rules to protect against future shocks such as the Greek financial crisis.
AVIATION
Speed boosts Boeing profit
Faster production of commercial jets continues to drive profits at Boeing Co, which on Wednesday reported earnings jumped 25 percent in the third quarter to US$1.7 billion from US$1.36 billion during the same period last year. The Chicago-based company said it earned US$2.47 per share. Earnings excluding certain pension expenses came to US$2.52 per share. Boeing also raised its outlook for the year by US$0.05 a share. The company now expects full-year earnings to be between US$7.65 and US$7.85 a share.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Cancer drug sales increase
Roche Holding AG, the world’s largest maker of cancer drugs, yesterday reported a 6 percent increase in third-quarter revenue and raised its full-year forecast, buoyed by demand for two new breast tumor medicines. Sales on a constant currency basis increased to 11.9 billion Swiss francs (US$12.4 billion) from SF11.8 billion a year earlier, the Basel, Switzerland-based company said. Roche does not report profit figures for the three months ending last month.
TECHNOLOGY
SK Hynix’s Q3 profits down
South Korea’s SK Hynix Inc yesterday announced a fall in third-quarter profits due to slowing global demand for memory chips that failed to offset orders from Apple Inc for its popular new iPhone. The world’s second-largest memory chip maker said net profit was 1.05 trillion won in the July-September period — down 4.3 percent from a year earlier and below analyst estimates.
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],”