SPORTSWEAR
Puma sales hit record-high
German sportswear maker Puma yesterday said it set a new quarterly record for sales between January and last month, springing over the 1 billion euro (US$1.09 billion) barrier and increasing its forecasts for the year. Revenues at the Bavaria-based group grew by 18 percent year-on-year to 1.01 billion euros in currency-adjusted terms, while operating, or underlying profit added 70.1 percent to reach 70.2 million euros. Puma said first-quarter net profit reached 49.6 million euros — almost double last year’s figure. Footwear sales grew 24.8 percent to reach 498.9 million euros, with more modest growth in its clothing and accessories segments.
CHIPMAKERS
SK Hynix’s Q1 profits surge
South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix made record quarterly profits in the first three months of the year, it said yesterday, with strong demand for memory chips for mobile gadgets pushing up prices. The firm’s first-quarter net profit surged 324 percent from a year ago to 1.89 trillion won (US$1.68 billion) while operating profit jumped 339 percent to 2.4 trillion won — also a record for any quarter. Strong demand for NAND flash memory chips used in smartphones and other mobile gadgets, coupled with industry-wide supply shortages, pushed up chip prices and boosted the firm’s margins, SK Hynix said. Prices for DRAM chips also rose, it said, adding demand would remain strong due to the popularity of cloud computing services and high-end PCs for gamers.
ENERGY
Amec loss exceeds estimates
British oil and natural gas services company Amec Foster Wheeler PLC, which is being bought by John Wood Group PLC, reported a bigger-than-expected last-year pretax loss as the oil market rout forced companies to delay or cancel contracts. The company’s loss before tax widened to £542 million (US$693.5 million), compared with a pretax loss of £235 million a year earlier. Analysts on average were expecting a full-year pretax loss of £275.5 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The company reported a 15 percent fall in its full-year adjusted trading profit to £318 million for the whole of last year.
INVESTMENT
Rocket closes in on target
Rocket Internet SE increased sales and shrank losses at some of its biggest start-ups, bringing the company closer to a target of having three of its main investments break even by the end of this year. Food-box start-up HelloFresh boosted sales 49 percent to 158.7 million euros in the fourth quarter. Adjusted losses before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization narrowed at businesses including HelloFresh, Global Fashion Group and Dafiti, Rocket said yesterday.
AUTOMAKERS
Volvo’s earnings surge 58%
Volvo AB’s first-quarter earnings surged 58 percent as the auto and truckmaker reduced spending and sold more construction equipment. Adjusted operating profit jumped to 7.03 billion kronor (US$798.37 million) from 4.46 billion kronor a year earlier, the Gothenburg, Sweden-based company said yesterday in a statement. Volvo is navigating uneven demand for commercial vehicles in its key markets. While European truck orders have been buoyed by improved economic prospects, including German business confidence at a six-year high, demand in the US has flagged following a period of higher purchases.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is