FRANCE
S&P cuts rating to ‘AA’
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) cut France’s sovereign credit rating on Friday by one notch to “AA” from “AA+,” giving a thumbs-down to French President Francois Hollande’s efforts to put the economy back on track. All three major rating agencies had already stripped the country of its top-grade “triple-A” status. S&P is the first agency to downgrade the status for a second time, warning that the economic reforms of the past year were not sufficient to lift growth. The ratings agency adjusted its outlook for national debt to stable from negative, citing Hollande’s commitment to containing net general debt, which it expects to peak at 86 percent of output in 2015.
GERMANY
Trade surplus grows
The national trade surplus expanded in September as imports fell and exports grew, rising to 18.9 billion euros (US$25.4 billion) in September from 15.8 billion in August, data published by the German Federal Statistics Office yesterday showed. In seasonally adjusted terms, the country exported goods worth 92.8 billion euros in September, up from 91.2 billion euros in August, the office said in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Economy gains after crisis
The economy expanded at a 2.8 percent annual rate from July through September, a surprising acceleration ahead of the 16-day partial government shutdown and compared with a 2.5 percent annual rate in the April-to-June period, the US Department of Commerce said on Thursday. Analysts say the shutdown could cut more than half a percentage point from annual growth in the fourth quarter. The shutdown cost the economy an estimated US$24 billion, according to Beth Ann Bovino, an economist at Standard & Poor’s.
EUROZONE
ECB cuts interest rates
The European Central Bank (ECB) cut its key interest rates in an unexpected move on Thursday amid concerns that slowing inflation in the eurozone could turn into a vicious cycle of falling prices. The bank took financial markets by surprise by cutting its central “refi” or refinancing rate, by a quarter of a percentage point to a new record low of 0.25 percent. The move comes after new data showed eurozone inflation slowing to a four-year low of 0.7 percent last month.
ELECTRONICS
Sony hires strategy officer
Sony Corp replaced its chief strategy officer a week after cutting forecasts and reporting a surprise loss that triggered a plunge in its share price. Kenichiro Yoshida will replace Tadashi Saito as chief strategy officer, according to a company statement. Saito was appointed by Sony president Kazuo Hirai in April last year to help lead a turnaround after the company lost US$8 billion on its television business over the past nine years.
E-COMMERCE
Groupon mobile move a hit
Groupon Inc said more people are flocking to deals offered on mobile devices as the company transforms itself into a service offering thousands of discounts instead of a daily deal. The company, which said on Wednesday that it agreed to buy Ticket Monster Inc in South Korea for US$260 million in cash and stock, reported that sales rose 4.7 percent to US$595.1 million in the third quarter and a net loss of US$2.58 million. Groupon forecast fourth-quarter revenue of between US$690 million and US$740 million and operating income of between US$40 million and US$60 million.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
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