TELECOMS
Motorola unit to cut jobs
Google’s Motorola Mobility unit will lay off about 1,200 employees, or more than 10 percent of its work force, in a bid to return to profitability, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The Journal said Motorola employees were informed about the latest cuts — which come on top of 4,000 layoffs announced in August last year — via a company e-mail sent this week. “While we’re very optimistic about the new products in our pipeline, we still face challenges,” the newspaper quoted the e-mail as saying. “Our costs are too high, we’re operating in markets where we’re not competitive and we’re losing money.” The layoffs will affect workers in the US, China and India, the Journal said.
INTERNET
Pandora Media CEO resigns
Pandora Media’s top executive on Thursday announced plans to step down after the Internet radio giant’s earnings report showed greater losses even as it captured more listeners. Chairman and chief executive Joe Kennedy will continue in his current role until his successor is named, the company said in a statement. In its earnings report, Pandora said it held a record 8 percent of total US radio listeners at the end of its fiscal year in January. The loss in the past quarter widened to US$14.4 million from US$8 million a year earlier, while revenues jumped to US$125 million from US$81 million.
TELECOMS
No bonus for Nokia CEO
Nokia, once the world’s biggest mobile phone maker, said on Thursday that chief executive Stephen Elop received no bonus last year, when the company posted huge losses, reducing his overall payslip by 45 percent. According to Nokia’s annual report filed to US stock exchange authorities, Elop’s earnings dropped from 7.995 million euros (US$10.46 million) in 2011 to 4.334 million euros last year. While Elop’s fixed salary increased by 6 percent to 1.08 million euros last year, his performance bonus was reduced to zero from 473,070 euros in 2011. Other forms of remuneration, including deferred compensation, stocks, stock options and benefits, were 50 percent lower than the previous year.
TIRES
Italy protests plant closure
Italian Minister of Economic Development Corrado Passera criticized a decision by the Bridgestone tire company to close a plant in southern Italy as “serious and without reason.” Passera protested in a letter to the Japanese company, released by the ministry on Thursday, that the company had failed to work with authorities to find another solution. Bridgestone Corp’s European division announced on Tuesday the closure of the passenger car tire production plant near Bari by early next year, citing a slump in demand due to declining auto sales in Europe. The company said demand for tires produced at the plant was down 13 percent last year from 2011, with no prospect for returning to earlier volumes before 2020.
CUBA
Wholesale market opens
Cuba has opened its first wholesale market to meet the demands of the private sector and state-run companies, the government said on Thursday. The market, open to state enterprise, cooperatives and independent businesses, has been set up on an experimental basis on Isla de la Juventud, Cuba’s second largest island, approximately 130km south of Havana. The market will sell food products, consumer and industrial goods, the government said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
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