ELECTRONICS
Sony reports Q1 loss
Sony Corp reported an ¥88.4 billion (US$818 million) loss in the first quarter, a smaller flow of red ink than a year earlier, but yesterday it postponed giving its annual outlook until May, citing damage from major earthquakes in southwestern Japan earlier this month. Quarterly sales for the company slipped nearly 6 percent from a year earlier to ¥1.8 trillion. The company racked up a ¥106.8 billion yen in the same period a year earlier. For the fiscal year ended on March 31, Sony posted a ¥147.8 billion profit, a reversal from ¥126 billion in losses a year earlier. It was the first time in three years Sony was able to post a profit. For the quarter ended on March 31, Sony’s operations in mobile communications and devices lagged, while games, movies and imaging operations fared better.
ELECTRONICS
LG earnings decline
LG Electronics Inc yesterday said it earned 191 billion won (US$168 million) in the January-March period, compared with 2 billion won a year earlier. The results were its best since mid-2014. Operating profit jumped 66 percent to 505 billion won even as sales declined 5 percent to 13.4 trillion won. The big jump shows that LG’s efforts to burnish its reputation as a premium home-appliance maker are paying off. However, its mobile business lost money due to marketing expenses to promote the new G5 smartphone.
BIOMEDICINE
Samsung to list shares
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co yesterday announced a plan to list shares of its drug-manufacturing unit on Seoul’s stock market as it eyes the biomedical business as a new engine for growth. Samsung Biologics’ board members agreed to list the firm’s shares on Seoul’s main KOSPI bourse by the end of this year in a step to fund more investment, the firm said in a statement. The firm produces biopharmaceutical drugs as a manufacturing contractor for major companies including Bristol-Myers Squibb and Roche at plants west of Seoul.
HOTELS
TUI to sell Hotelbeds
German tourism giant TUI said it has agreed to sell off its Hotelbeds unit to two investment funds for 1.2 billion euros (US$1.4 billion), the German group said in a statement late on Wednesday. Hotelbeds describes itself as the No. 1 bedbank worldwide, offering hotel capacity to travel agencies and tour operators in more than 120 countries. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to complete by end of September, TUI said.
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],”