ENTERTAINMENT
Recon to buy Millennium
A Chinese wire and cable maker is buying independent studio Millennium Films, which produced Rambo and The Expendables. Recon Holding (睿康) on Thursday said it was taking a 51 percent stake in Millennium for US$100 million. Recon, based in Yixing, China, near Shanghai, is controlled by Tony Xia (夏建統). Xia was a little-known businessman until last year, when he bought English soccer club Aston Villa. The terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the second quarter, give Recon majority ownership of Millennium and its library of 300 films.
BANKING
RBS plans to reduce costs
Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS), Britain’s largest taxpayer-owned bank, laid out a plan to cut costs by £2 billion (US$2.5 billion) over the next four years as it posted its ninth straight annual loss. The net loss last year widened from £1.98 billion in 2015 to £6.96 billion, the Edinburgh, Scotland-based lender said in a statement yesterday. Excluding conduct charges and restructuring costs, operating profit was £3.67 billion, topping the £3.1 billion average estimate of seven analysts compiled by Bloomberg News.
INTERNET
Baidu earnings beat forecast
Chinese Internet giant Baidu Inc (百度) on Thursday reported that its quarterly earnings topped expectations, despite falling revenue in the final three months of last year. Revenue totaled US$2.62 billion, down 2.6 percent from the same period in 2015, the company reported in New York, where it is listed. Income in the fourth quarter plunged 83 percent from a year earlier to US$1.7 billion. It was the second quarter in a row the company has reported a slump in revenue, following authorities’ introduction of new controls on advertising.
INTERNET
HPE revenue misses target
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (HPE) on Thursday reported quarterly revenue that fell far short of estimates and trimmed its profit forecasts, hampered by rising component costs and competition from cloud-based rivals. Profit, excluding some items, is to be US$0.41 to US$0.45 per share in the current quarter, the Palo Alto, California-based company said in a statement. The company also reduced its annual forecast to US$1.88 to US$1.98 per share. Hewlett Packard Enterprise cited currency fluctuations, higher commodities pricing and “near-term execution issues” in reducing its forecast. Revenue declined 10 percent to US$11.4 billion in the first quarter ended on Jan. 31, the company said.
APPAREL
Old Navy buoys Gap profit
The Gap Inc on Thursday met Wall Street expectations with its fourth-quarter profit, helped again by results at its Old Navy brand. The clothing company with brands including Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta, said it earned US$220 million, or US$0.55 per share, in the period that ended on Jan. 28. That compared with US$214 million, or US$0.53 per share, a year earlier. The clothing chain posted revenue of US$4.43 billion, up from US$4.39 billion a year earlier. Net sales at Old Navy rose in the quarter, while those at Gap and Banana Republic fell from a year earlier. The San Francisco-based company said it planned to focus its store openings in the current fiscal year on Old Navy and Athleta branches, with store closings expected in the Gap brand.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to