MACROECONOMICS
RBI may turn hawkish
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) might become more vigilant on inflation as economic growth strengthens, increasing the risk of monetary tightening. The government on Wednesday raised its growth forecast for the year ending next month to 6.6 percent from the 6.5 percent it predicted in January. The economy expanded 7.2 percent last quarter from a year earlier, beating the 7 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey and the previous quarter’s 6.5 percent. Inflation accelerated to 5.21 percent in December last year before easing slightly in January.
MACROECONOMICS
US’ Q4 growth trimmed
US economic growth in the final three months of last year was revised down slightly to annual growth of 2.5 percent, as businesses spent less on investment and restocking shelves than the US Department of Commerce’s initial estimate of 2.6 percent. The fourth-quarter advance followed faster increases of 3.1 percent at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in the second quarter and 3.2 percent in the third quarter, the department reported on Wednesday.
ENERGY
Exxon drops Rosneft
Exxon Mobil Corp on Wednesday said it is abandoning joint ventures with Rosneft PJSC after international sanctions against Russia paralyzed a historic drilling project. Irving, Texas-based Exxon decided to exit the ventures late last year and said it would lead to an after-tax loss of US$200 million this year. The investment came to a standstill in 2014 after the Russian energy sector was targeted by US and EU sanctions amid conflicts in Crimea and Ukraine.
AUTOMAKERS
Peugeot posts record profits
French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen yesterday said that its profits raced to new records last year even if its newly acquired Opel and Vauxhall brands weighed on earnings. The group said in a statement that its net profit rose 11.5 percent to a record 1.929 billion euros (US$2.4 billion), while operating profit climbed 23 percent to 3.991 billion euros and sales grew 20.7 percent to 65.2 billion euros.
BANKING
RBS may cut more jobs
Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS) chief financial officer Ewen Stevenson signaled further job cuts in an interview, as Britain’s biggest government-owned lender accelerates its investment in technology. Stevenson said that restructuring costs of £2.5 billion (US$3.45 billion) announced last week were in part related to the disposal of properties and “data centers,” which are a legacy of the past. He did not give a target for potential job reductions at the company, which shut 259 branches in December last year, as customers increasingly access their accounts online.
RETAIL
Carrefour falls into red
Carrefour SA on Wednesday said it fell into a loss last year, as competition among retailers in France intensified, reinforcing the need to push forward with an overhaul it announced last month. Penalized by exceptional items, including costs related to an old chain of stores in France, the food and goods retailer said it suffered a net loss of 531 million euros. Sales rose 3 percent last year to 88.24 billion euros. However, on a like-for-like basis, the growth rate slid to 1.6 percent from 3 percent in 2016, Carrefour said.
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