ELECTRONICS
Lower phone sales hit LG
LG Electronics Inc, the world’s third-largest maker of mobile phones, reported a wider-than-estimated quarterly loss as sales of phones missed forecasts and earnings dropped at its flat-panel unit. LG had a net loss of 414 billion won (US$367 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, it said in a statement yesterday. The Seoul-based phone maker had a profit of 7.6 billion won in the third quarter last year. The company had an operating loss of 32 billion won, narrower than a loss of 185.2 billion won a year ago.
TECHNOLOGY
Hitachi raises profit forecast
Japanese high-tech firm Hitachi Ltd yesterday revised its half-year net profit forecast five times higher, citing a smooth recovery from the March earthquake and tsunami. Hitachi now estimates its net profit for the six months to Sept. 30 at ￥50 billion (US$658 million), up from a previous forecast of ￥10 billion. The company also raised its projection of operating profit to ￥170 billion from ￥100 billion and sales to ￥4.55 trillion from ￥4.40 trillion.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Merck sees income grow
Pharmaceutical and biotech equipment company Merck & Co said yesterday its net income rose 7.5 percent to 227 million euros (US$315 million) in the third quarter as sales of key drugs increased. The maker of cancer drug Erbitux said that revenues rose 3.8 percent despite a difficult sales environment in which governments are trying to reduce healthcare expenditure. Sales of Erbitux rose 4.7 percent in the third quarter on growth in emerging markets, while sales for multiple sclerosis drug Rebif rose 8.4 percent.
AUTOMAKERS
French giant to cut costs
French giant PSA Peugeot Citroen yesterday announced a 800 million euros cost-cutting plan for next year that is expected to include layoffs amid a stagnating European car market. The firm, France’s largest automaker and Europe’s second-largest, employs more than 205,000 people worldwide, including 100,000 in France. The plan comes as it announced that sales in its cars division were down 1.6 percent.
INTERNET
Groupon to set IPO price
Groupon Inc is seeking a valuation of about 5 times projected sales next year in its initial public offering (IPO), people familiar with the plans said, making it more expensive than Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp. Advisers to Groupon based the asking price for the IPO on a projection that the company would have sales of about US$2.1 billion next year, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the figures are private. The US$17 midpoint of Groupon’s IPO price range would value the company at US$10.8 billion, or about 5 times that sales prediction.
INTERNET
Google details data requests
The US, India and several European countries are where Google gets the most government demands to turn over information about its users and censor online material. The Internet search leader released the snapshot in a Tuesday update on its Web site. In the US, Google gave federal, state and other agencies what they wanted 93 percent of the time. The US government submitted nearly 6,000 requests affecting more than 11,000 user accounts during the January-to-June period. The Indian government made 1,739 requests about more than 2,400 users, the second-highest total.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
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