ELECTRONICS
Sharp announces losses
Japanese consumer electronics giant Sharp Corp on Tuesday reversed its fiscal year profit forecast, warning that it would instead lose about US$256 million, largely owing to a slump in its television business. The maker of Aquos brand electronics said it now expects to book a ￥30 billion (US$256 million) shortfall in the year to next month, after earlier predicting a profit of the same amount, while sales would come in at ￥2.9 trillion. Sharp, which lost ￥7.2 billion in the nine months to December last year, had warned earlier that its full-year earnings would miss previous forecasts owing to a “deterioration” in sales at home and fierce competition in the LCD business.
PETROLEUM
BP profits fall with oil prices
BP PLC said fourth-quarter profit fell as oil prices slumped, forcing Europe’s third-largest oil company to cut spending. Profit adjusted for one-time items and inventory changes dropped to US$2.2 billion from US$2.8 billion a year earlier, the London-based company said in a statement yesterday. That beat the US$1.6 billion average forecast of 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The results were bolstered by better-than-expected income from BP’s 20 percent holding in Russian state-run oil producer OAO Rosneft. A slump in oil prices to less than US$50 per barrel from more than US$100 seven months ago has forced producers to review projects, slash spending and sell assets as they try to safeguard returns to investors. BP CEO Bob Dudley told staff last week their pay would be frozen this year, while the company cut jobs in the North Sea, Azerbaijan and Trinidad and Tobago.
CENTRAL BANKS
RBI maintains interest rates
India’s central bank kept interest rates unchanged yesterday, three weeks after announcing an unscheduled cut, signaling that it wants to wait for the government’s annual budget before easing further. After a meeting in the financial capital Mumbai, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said the benchmark repo rate, at which it lends to commercial banks, would stay at 7.75 percent. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said the bank was waiting for further signs of slowing inflation, along with the government’s budget, which is due to be delivered on Feb. 28. Most economists predicted yesterday’s rate would remain on hold after the RBI surprised investors with a 25-basis-point cut on Jan. 15, partly citing cooling inflation, in the first reduction in 20 months.
FINANCIAL
Mitsubishi profits jump 36%
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc’s third-quarter profit unexpectedly rose 36 percent, led by income from loans abroad and investment banking. Net income at Japan’s largest bank climbed to ￥348.3 billion in the three months ended on Dec. 31 last year from ￥255.2 billion a year earlier, figures derived from a nine-month earnings statement showed yesterday. That beat the ￥231.9 billion average estimate of six analysts surveyed. Mitsubishi UFJ joined Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc and Mizuho Financial Group Inc in refraining from raising full-year profit projections, even after the three lenders achieved at least 95 percent of their targets. The banks are expanding lending abroad as falling interest rates triggered by the Bank of Japan’s monetary easing curb loan profitability at home.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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