REAL ESTATE
US home resales rebound
Home resales in the US rebounded more than expected last month as supply improved, the National Association of Realtors said on Wednesday. Existing-home sales surged 5.1 percent to an annual rate of 5.33 million units last month, beating economists’ expectations of a 3.5 percent increase. Sales were up 1.5 percent from a year earlier, data showed. A separate report from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed mortgage applications last week rose to their highest level in nine weeks as interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages hovered at their lowest point in more than a year.
ELECTRONICS
Sony income misses forecast
Sony Corp said full-year operating income was 9.4 percent below its forecast after booking a ¥59.6 billion (US$543 million) impairment charge for the business that makes camera modules, including for smartphones. Operating earnings were ¥290 billion in the 12 months ended last month compared with its earlier projection of ¥320 billion, Sony said yesterday. Net income in the period was ¥145 billion, 3.6 percent more than forecast. The company is assessing the effects of this month’s earthquakes in Japan on earnings in the current year.
ELECTRONICS
Huawei to sell bonds
Huawei Technologies Co (華為), the world’s third-biggest smartphone maker, plans to sell at least US$2 billion of bonds amid a boom in financing for Chinese technology companies, a person familiar with the matter said. The firm plans to offer 10-year notes and is still in discussion with banks about the details, while the size could change, the person said.
GAMBLING
Sands misses profit tips
Sands China Ltd (金沙中國), the Macau-based casino unit of Las Vegas Sands Corp, reported first-quarter profit missed analysts’ estimates as China’s economic slowdown hurt visitor spending. Sands China’s adjusted property earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization shrank 2.5 percent to US$517.9 million from US$531 million a year earlier, the Las Vegas-based parent said on Wednesday. That compares with the US$547 million median estimate of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
UTILITIES
GIC to buy ITC shares
Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte agreed to buy 19.9 percent of ITC Holdings Corp from Fortis Inc for US$1.23 billion in cash in one of the biggest investments Asian companies have made in US power lines operators. The transaction allows Fortis to keep an investment-grade credit rating, according to a statement by the three companies on Wednesday. Fortis agreed in February to buy ITC for US$6.9 billion in cash and stock.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis income down 13%
Swiss pharmaceuticals titan Novartis AG yesterday said net income from continued operations fell 13 percent in the first quarter to US$2.01 billion from US$2.31 billion a year earlier as generic competition cut into sales of Gleevec, one of the first effective cancer medicines. Sales dipped 3 percent to US$11.6 billion. Overall, the Basel-based company reported net income fell 85 percent from US$13 billion last year, which included the impact of an acquisition of oncology and consumer healthcare assets from GSK and the divestment of its vaccines and animal health businesses.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by