FRANCE
GDP edges up 0.5%
The economy expanded faster than economists forecast in the first quarter, powered by increasing corporate investment and a rebound in consumer spending. GDP growth accelerated to 0.5 percent from 0.3 percent in the final quarter of last year, beating the 0.4 percent projection in a Bloomberg survey, statistics office Insee said yesterday. Consumer spending rose 1.2 in the first quarter, while business investment jumped 1.6 percent, its biggest increase in at least two years, data showed.
SPAIN
Economy expands 0.8%
The economy grew 0.8 percent in the first quarter compared with the previous three months, its 11th consecutive growth figure, the National Statistics Office said yesterday. It grew 3.4 percent from the same period last year. The country emerged from a recession in late 2013 and is now one of the EU’s fastest-growing economies, although its unemployment rate of 21 percent remains the bloc’s second highest after Greece.
UNITED STATES
Q1 growth slows to 0.5%
The economy inched forward at the weakest pace in two years from January through last month, as consumer spending slowed, business investment plunged and exports declined further. The Department of Commerce on Thursday said that GDP grew by a tiny 0.5 percent in the first quarter, down from 1.4 percent growth in the fourth quarter of last year. The January-March performance was the poorest showing since GDP contracted by 0.9 percent in the first three months of 2014.
ENERGY
PetroChina posts losses
PetroChina Co (中石油) shares plunged yesterday, after the Chinese energy giant posted its first quarterly loss since listing overseas 16 years ago, as it struggled with a weak domestic economy and lower international oil prices. PetroChina lost 13.79 billion yuan (US$2.14 billion) in the first quarter, reversing from a gain of 6.15 billion yuan for the same period a year ago, it said in a statement to the Hong Kong exchange late on Thursday. It was the first quarterly loss by PetroChina since it listed on the bourse in 2000.
BANKING
RBS loses ￡968 million
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) yesterday said its net loss widened in the first quarter as the taxpayer-owned bank made its final ￡1.2 billion (US$1.7 billion) payment to the UK Treasury as part of a deal to give the government first crack at any profits. The bank, which is 73 percent taxpayer-owned, reported a net loss of ￡968 million, compared with ￡459 million in the first quarter of last year. Excluding the payment to the government, RBS posted a profit of ￡225 million.
INTERNET
Amazon revenue jumps 28%
Amazon.com Inc on Thursday reported better-than-expected first-quarter results fueled by a 28 percent jump in revenue. The Seattle-based company’s net income totaled US$513 million, or US$1.07 per share, compared with a loss in the same period a year earlier. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of US$0.61 per share. Amazon’s cloud-based services, called Amazon Web Services, remained another bright spot, with revenue up 64 percent to US$2.57 billion. The online retailer’s revenue rose to US$29.13 billion in the period, also exceeding analysts’ forecasts.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
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