COMMUNICATIONS
Reliance to buy Sistema unit
Indian billionaire Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications Ltd agreed to buy AFK Sistema’s Indian wireless unit in an all-stock deal that would create a carrier with 118 million subscribers. Sistema, controlled by Russian tycoon Vladimir Evtushenkov, will hold about a 10 percent stake in the merged entity and pay off its Indian unit’s existing debt before closing the deal, Reliance Communications said in a statement to exchanges. The discussions between the two parties had been going on since June. The deal marks the start of consolidation in the world’s second-largest wireless market where stiff competition between 12 carriers for more than 988 million subscribers, has resulted in tariffs that are among the lowest globally.
WIRELESS
SK Telecom earnings drop
A service fee price war with archrivals saw South Korea’s top wireless operator, SK Telecom, hemorrhage profits in the third quarter, according to a company earnings report yesterday. SK Telecom and two other major players in South Korea’s small and saturated wireless market have focused all their efforts on competing for domestic customer share after efforts to go global stalled. Earlier this year, the company rolled out a series of discounts in monthly and subscription fees to counter similar moves by rivals KT and LG Uplus. The company’s net profit for July to last month amounted to 381.8 billion won (US$334.8 million), down 28.1 percent from a year earlier, the Seoul-based firm said in a statement. Operating profit fell 8.6 percent to 490.6 billion won during the same period, while sales also sagged 2.4 percent to 4.2 trillion won.
KAZAKHSTAN
Aide named bank chairman
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev named his aide Daniyar Akishev as central bank chairman yesterday, replacing Kairat Kelimbetov after just two years in the job. The reshuffle, quickly approved by the Senate upper chamber, follows a sharp depreciation of the Kazakh tenge, which has lost about a third of its value against the US dollar since the central bank abandoned its pegged exchange rate policy on Aug. 20. The policy change was a response to the sharp drop in the price of oil, Kazakhstan’s main export, and devaluations carried out by the Central Asian state’s major trading partners, Russia and China, as their economic growth slowed. The central bank resumed interventions on the foreign exchange market in mid-September and has since spent at least US$1.7 billion on protecting the tenge from what it described as overshooting driven by speculation. New chairman Akishev, 39, worked at the central bank for 18 years before joining Nazarbayev’s administration last year.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan predicts profit rise
Nissan Motor Co yesterday raised its full-year profit forecast as Japan’s second-largest automaker benefits from an increase in demand in the US. Net income might rise to ￥535 billion (US$4.4 billion) in the 12 months through March from ￥457.6 billion a year earlier, Nissan said. That is up from the company’s ￥485 billion forecast made in May. That compares with the ￥534 billion average of 26 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The company also raised its operating income forecast to ￥730 billion from ￥675 billion. Nissan is benefiting from a robust US market that registered the fastest pace of sales growth in more than a decade, offsetting weak demand in Japan and China. The automaker boosted US deliveries faster than rivals.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
RSS