STANDING HEAD
IBM beats profit forecasts
International Business Machines Corp (IBM) on Thursday reported fourth-quarter net profit of US$4.5 billion, or earnings per share of US$4.72. Earnings, adjusted for costs related to mergers and acquisitions and non-recurring costs, came to US$5.01 per share. The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of US$4.89 per share. The technology and consulting company posted revenue of US$21.77 billion in the period, also surpassing consensus forecasts.
TRANSPORT
Uber settles drivers’ claims
Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc has agreed to pay US$20 million to settle allegations that it exaggerated prospective earnings in seeking to recruit drivers, according to documents filed with a US federal court on Thursday. The company said on its Web site that UberX drivers made more than US$90,000 in New York and US$74,000 in San Francisco when the real earnings were considerably less, the US Federal Trade Commission said in a court filing.
ENTERTAINMENT
Paramount gets China deal
Paramount Pictures yesterday said it had inked a cofinancing deal with two Chinese companies for the Hollywood studio’s slate of movies over the next three years. Under the terms of the deal, Shanghai Film Group Co (上海電影集團) and Huahua Media (華樺傳媒) will also set up an office on Paramount’s lot later this year, the studio said in a statement. The Chinese companies will provide about US$1 billion to finance at least 25 percent of Paramount’s films, a person familiar with the deal said. Film industry publications cited the same figures.
INDONESIA
Ex-Garuda CEO a suspect
Indonesia’s anti-corruption agency on Thursday said it was treating the former chief executive of airline PT Garuda Indonesia Tbk as a suspect in a bribery case. The Corruption Eradication Commission said in a statement that Emirsyah Satar, the CEO of Garuda from 2005 to 2014, was suspected of taking bribes related to the purchase of planes and machines from Airbus Group SE and Rolls-Royce PLC. Satar is now chairman of Lippo Group’s e-commerce platform MatahariMall.com.
RUSSIA
GDP to grow 2%: minister
The Russian economy could grow 2 percent this year in case of no external shocks like a new fall in oil prices, Minister for Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He also said the central bank could soon start buying foreign currency to help the finance ministry sterilize excessive budget revenues above US$40 per barrel, but added it would not mean Russia would depart from its policies of a freely floating ruble.
CHEMICALS
ChemChina seeks US nod
China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina, 中國化工) said it filed for US antitrust approval with the Federal Trade Commission for its proposed US$43 billion takeover of Swiss agrochemical company Syngenta AG. ChemChina has submitted documentation required by the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act and expects the US antitrust process to be “on track,” the company said in an e-mail. The commission has 30 days to clear the proposed tie-up or issue a second request, seeking more information and a longer review period.
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