ENTERTAINMENT
Amazon venturing into film
Amazon.com Inc is getting into the movie business, building on some early successes in TV productions, the latest sign of the Internet retailer’s eagerness to build itself into a major Hollywood player. Amazon said on Monday it was aiming to produce close to 12 movies a year for theatrical release, which would then be available on its Prime video service within two months, a huge drop from the roughly one-year wait it normally faces to stream Hollywood releases. Amazon expects to focus on “indie” movies with budgets of between US$5 million and US$25 million, spokeswoman Sally Fouts said. While that is modest compared with Hollywood blockbusters, it will add further to spending at Amazon, potentially unnerving investors concerned about the company’s lack of profitability and skimpy disclosure of its spending.
MACROECONOMICS
Malaysia cuts GDP growth
Malaysia yesterday cut its economic growth forecast for this year and announced a slew of austerity measures after tumbling oil prices forced the government to slash spending. Prime Minister Najib Razak said the government’s budget for this year, announced in October, was based on oil prices averaging US$100 a barrel, but this projection was no longer realistic as global crude prices have dropped by more than 50 percent. State oil company Petronas contributes about a third of Malaysian government revenue. He said the government lowered its oil price forecast to US$55 a barrel, which would lead to a revenue shortfall of 8.3 billion ringgit (US$2.3 billion) despite savings from the removal of fuel subsidies last year. Najib said development spending would still be maintained at 48.5 billion ringgit, but the government would slash its operating expenditure by 5.5 billion ringgit. The economy is forecast to grow between 4.5 and 5.5 percent this year, while the budget deficit is expected to equal 3.2 percent of GDP.
TRADE
Itochu, CP invest in Citic
Japanese trading house Itochu yesterday said it was teaming up with Thai agricultural giant Charoen Pokphand Group (CP) to invest US$10.4 billion in Chinese conglomerate Citic Group (中信集團). The deal would see the pair acquire a 10 percent stake in Citic for HK$34.4 billion (US$4.4 billion) and invest another HK$45.9 billion in convertible preferred shares, which could ultimately double the size of their stake in the Chinese firm. By investing in politically connected Citic, the two could gain easier access to highly regulated Chinese business sectors, including resource development, logistics and real estate.
CONSUMER GOODS
Unilever earnings up 5%
Consumer goods giant Unilever, maker of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, yesterday said that net profit for last year rose 5 percent from the year earlier to 5.5 billion euros (US$6.4 billion) despite tough market conditions in its markets. Sales slid 2.7 percent to 48.4 billion euros, but underlying sales, which strip out currency fluctuations and new businesses, rose 2.9 percent for the year, it said. “Despite a challenging year for our industry with significant economic headwinds and weak markets we have delivered another year of competitive underlying sales growth and margin expansion,” CEO Paul Polman said. The company does not expect a significant pickup in its markets for this year and predicts a similar performance to last year, Polman said.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
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