ENERGY
Shell Q1 profit up 2 percent
Royal Dutch Shell PLC yesterday said that net profit edged higher to US$6 billion in the first quarter, with the advance capped by cooler oil prices and a dip in production. Profit after tax climbed 2 percent compared with the first three months of last year, the Anglo-Dutch group said in an earnings statement. Oil and gas production dipped 2 percent to 3.75 million barrels per day, while average crude prices were slightly lower compared with a year earlier. “Shell has made a strong start to 2019,” chief executive Ben van Beurden said in the statement.
AUTOMAKERS
VW profits slip over scandal
Volkswagen AG yesterday reported a slip in profits in the first quarter, in part blaming a 1 billion euro (US$1.12 billion) charge over “legal risks” related to its “dieselgate” emissions cheating scandal. This year, net profit at the group dropped 7.5 percent year-on-year to just more than 3 billion euros in the first quarter. Operating profit was down 8.2 percent, at 3.9 billion euros, on revenue up 3.1 percent at just more than 60 billion euros, the company said.
BANKING
BNP surges despite losses
BNP Paribas SA reported the biggest fixed-income trading jump of all US and European banks in the first quarter, marking a rebound after recent losses and downgraded targets. Debt trading revenue unexpectedly rose 29 percent from a year earlier, helped by growth in rates and foreign-exchange transactions, the French bank said yesterday. That helped BNP’s global markets unit — its key trading division — post pretax profit of 252 million euros, above the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
BEVERAGES
Carlsberg Asian revenue up
Carlsberg A/S joined Heineken NV in reporting a strong start to the year as Asian revenue surged, helped by the acquisition of Cambrew, a Cambodian brewer. Revenue in the first quarter rose 6.4 percent on an organic basis, reaching 13.9 billion kroner (US$2.09 billion), while analysts expected 13.5 billion kroner. International brands such as Carlsberg, Tuborg and 1664 Blanc performed especially well in China, chief executive officer Cees ’t Hart said yesterday.
AUTOMAKERS
Tesla faces suit over death
The family of a California man killed in a Tesla has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company, blaming Tesla Inc’s self-driving technology as “defective,” attorneys said on Wednesday. The lawsuit, filed on Friday last week in California Superior Court, asserts that the death of Walter Huang (黃偉倫) in March last year resulted from Tesla’s “Autopilot” technology. Tesla has defended its technology, saying that Huang’s hands were not detected on the wheel just before the crash. Besides Tesla, the suit also names the California Department of Transportation.
IRAQ
Crude exports hit 2019 top
The nation made more than US$7 billion last month from its crude exports, the highest monthly revenue so far this year and about US$300 million more than the previous month, Ministry of Oil figures showed on Wednesday. Federal authorities exported just less than 104 million barrels, averaging at 3.47 million barrels per day. It had exported more than 104 million barrels in March.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the