CONGLOMERATES
Sony profit plunges 84%
Japanese electronics and entertainment company Sony Corp yesterday said its profit dropped 84 percent in October-December as losses in its movie division offset healthy results in its video game business. The Tokyo-based company reported a fiscal third quarter profit of ¥19.6 billion (US$174 million), down from ¥120.1 billion the previous year. Quarterly sales slipped 7 percent to ¥2.4 trillion, mainly because of unfavorable foreign-exchange rates, the company said. Sony also lowered its full year fiscal profit forecast because of the US$962 million write-down in its film division, stemming from its acquisition of Columbia Pictures in 1989.
BANKING
Deutsche Bank losses widen
Deutsche Bank AG yesterday said it lost 1.89 billion euros (US$2.02 billion) in the fourth quarter as losses on the sale of its Abbey Life Assurance Co unit and costs for legal fines and penalties weighed on the bottom line. The loss was even larger than the 2.12 billion euro loss from the same period a year ago. The bank strengthened an important measure of its financial solidity and CEO John Cryan said he was optimistic about the coming year. The bank this month agreed to pay US$7.2 billion to US authorities over its sale of securities based on mortgages blamed for helping start the financial crisis.
ENERGY
Shell profit skyrockets
Royal Dutch Shell PLC yesterday said that net profit more than doubled last year, helped by a recovery in oil prices in the fourth quarter. Full-year net profit came in at US$4.58 billion, compared with US$1.94 billion for 2015, the Anglo-Dutch energy giant said in an earnings statement. The earnings also take into account the integration of smaller British rival BG Group, which Shell acquired one year ago in a mega takeover. However, Shell’s profit adjusted for exceptional items and the changing value of oil and gas inventories fell 8 percent to US$3.53 billion last year. Shell last year bought BG in a deal worth about US$68 billion at the time to strengthen the Anglo-Dutch group’s position in the liquefied natural gas market.
TELECOMS
Nokia posts 766m euro loss
Nokia Oyj yesterday said that falling network sales and costs stemming from acquisitions and its integration of Alcatel-Lucent had resulted in a “disappointing” loss last year. The telecoms firm recorded a net loss of 766 million euros last year, which chief executive Rajeev Suri described in a statement as a “year of transition.” Suri said he was “disappointed” with last year’s results, but added that he expected a better financial performance this year as market conditions improve. “We remain in a position of financial strength,” he said.
MEXICO
Remittances home hit record
Mexicans living abroad sent home a record of nearly US$27 billion last year, the central bank said on Wednesday, amid US President Donald Trump’s threat to tap into their remittances to finance a border wall. The total sum rose 8.8 percent from US$24.78 billion in 2015 to US$26.97 billion last year. Cash sent by Mexicans living abroad, mostly from the US, provides one of the nation’s main sources of foreign income. Although the central bank did not explain why Mexicans sent more money back home last year, remittances rose by 6.2 percent in December, the month after Trump was elected.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day