British low-cost airline EasyJet PLC yesterday reported a small rise in winter bookings, shrugging off concerns about an increasingly competitive European travel market.
The company also posted a 21.5 percent rise in pretax profit to ￡581 million (US$909 million) for the year ended on Sept. 30, in line with an upgraded forecast it made last month.
Cheap fares have helped EasyJet and rival Ryanair Ltd win market share in the European short-haul travel sector, against traditional airlines such as Air France-KLM SAS and Lufthansa AG, which have recently announced plans to expand their own budget services.
Photo: Bloomberg
“EasyJet has proved that its profit upgrades earlier in the year were fully justified, whilst its outlook remains defiantly upbeat,” Hargreaves Lansdown PLC head of equities Richard Hunter said.
The company, Europe’s No. 2 low-cost carrier after Ryanair, said its strong position in main airports, where new slots are not readily available, would help it attract more customers.
It did not give any figures for the rise in winter bookings, but said it expected to increase capacity — measured in seats flown — by about 3.5 percent in the first half of its new fiscal year and by about 5 percent for the full year.
Ireland’s Ryanair has recently been moving into space traditionally occupied by EasyJet — improving its previously much criticized customer service and expanding into main airports used by business travelers.
That strategy and a surge in winter bookings helped Ryanair raise its annual profit forecast by almost 20 percent earlier this month.
Shares in EasyJet traded down 1.9 percent to ￡15.15 in London, with analysts saying that the muted reaction was expected, in the context of an 18 percent rise over the past three months.
EasyJet also said it would lift its ordinary dividend per share by 35.5 percent to ￡0.454, in line with a proposal made earlier this year to reward shareholders with 40 percent of profit, above the previous one-third distribution.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
RSS