AUTOMAKERS
Nissan cuts profit forecast
Nissan Motor Co yesterday slashed its full-year sales and profit forecast as it struggles with weak demand in Japan, the US and Europe, as well as the arrest of former chairman Carlos Ghosn. Nissan downgraded its net profit forecast to ¥110 billion (US$1 billion) for the fiscal year to March next year, compared with an earlier estimate of ¥170 billion. Full-year sales are now estimated at ¥10.6 trillion, down from ¥11.3 trillion previously forecast. Net profit for the six months to September plunged 73.5 percent to ¥65.4 billion on sales down 9.6 percent at ¥5 trillion.
AUTOMAKERS
Tata seeks partnerships
Tata Group, the owner of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), has approached automakers, including China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co (浙江吉利控股集團) and BMW AG, as it seeks partnerships for the beleaguered British automotive business, people said. India’s largest conglomerate has said it is open to finding partners for JLR to save on costs and share the burden of investing in electric vehicles. “There have been no talks with Tata or JLR,” Geely said in a statement. BMW declined to comment, as did Tata.
TECHNOLOGY
Google, Ascension team up
Alphabet Inc’s Google signed its biggest cloud computing customer in healthcare yet, according to an announcement on Monday. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that Google was teaming up with Ascension to collect personal health-related information of millions of Americans across 21 states. The partnership would also explore artificial intelligence and machine learning applications to help improve clinical effectiveness as well as patient safety, Ascension said.
FRANCE
Growth to cool down
Economic growth would cool slightly at the end of the year amid pressure on industry from the global slowdown, the Bank of France said yesterday. The softer pace of expansion indicates the eurozone’s second-largest economy is not immune to the downturn in trade and manufacturing that is hurting countries across the bloc. According to the central bank’s activity indicator, GDP would expand 0.2 percent this quarter after rising 0.3 percent in the third.
LIGHTING
Osram urges takeover
Osram Licht AG is recommending that shareholders accept a US$4.4 billion takeover offer from AMS AG after reaching a business combination agreement with the Austrian sensor maker that would protect workers from merger-related layoffs until 2022. The offer price of 41 euros a share in cash “represents an appropriate valuation of the company,” Osram said in a statement yesterday. The German company also reported that fourth-quarter earnings fell 43 percent to 86 million euros (US$95 million). Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected an average of 78.7 million euros.
RETAIL
KKR approaches Walgreens
KKR & Co has formally approached drugstore giant Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc about a deal to take the company private, in what could be the biggest-ever leveraged buyout, people familiar with the matter said. The New York-based private equity firm has been preparing a proposal to potentially buy out shareholders of Walgreens Boots, the people said. It is unclear how feasible the transaction would be, given the need for large amounts of financing.
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
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
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)