AUTOMAKERS
Toyota profit down 14.5%
Toyota Motor Corp yesterday reported a 14.5 percent drop in profit for the fiscal first quarter as sales fell and a strong yen slashed earnings for the Japanese automaker. April-to-June profit totaled ￥552.4 billion (US$5.4 billion), down from ￥646.3 billion the same period a year earlier. The results were better than the ￥435 billion profit that analysts surveyed by FactSet had projected. Quarterly sales fell about 6 percent to ￥6.59 trillion. Toyota also lowered its profit forecast for the fiscal year through March next year to ￥1.45 trillion, down from an earlier forecast for a ￥1.5 trillion profit. Toyota expects to sell 10.15 million vehicles for the fiscal year through March next year, up from 10.09 million the year before.
TELECOMS
Nokia posts US$738m loss
Nokia Corp yesterday reported a second-quarter net loss of 665 million euros (US$738 million) due to weak demand for mobile networks and the ongoing integration of acquired competitor Alcatel-Lucent. The combined net sales of Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent were 5.6 billion euros in the April-to-June period, compared with Nokia’s 2.9 billion euros a year earlier when it had not yet merged with the French telecommunications gear maker. When comparing like-for-like businesses, Nokia’s revenue fell to 5.7 billion euros from 6.4 billion euros. Chief executive officer Rajeev Suri said the company was targeting cost savings of 1.2 billion euros in 2018.
MANUFACTURING
Siemens lifts forecast
German industrial group Siemens yesterday lifted its annual earnings forecast after its order book swelled last quarter with booming demand for renewables. In a statement, the firm said it expected profits per share between 6.5 and 6.7 euros, compared with the 6 to 6.4 it had previously predicted. In April through June its order book bulged to 21 billion euros, a 6 percent increase over the same period last year, boosted by both demand for renewables as well as power and gas. The group expects “moderate revenue growth” for the whole of the 2015-2016 financial year after adjusting for currency effects.
UNITED KINGDOM
Car registrations unchanged
Car registrations were flat last month, data for the first full month since Britons voted to leave the EU showed yesterday. Sales rose 0.06 percent year-on-year to 178,523 units with a rise in business demand for fleet vehicles compensating for a 6 percent drop in demand from members of the public. One of the nation’s biggest selling brands, Volkswagen , saw its sales fall 9.5 percent last month, the ninth month out of the last 10, data showed.
RETAIL
Wal-Mart eyes Jet.com
Wal-Mart Stores Inc is in talks to buy Jet.com Inc, the e-commerce start-up that began a year ago billing itself as a challenger to Amazon.com Inc, according to people familiar with the matter. The discussions might ultimately result in a strategic investment rather than an acquisition, one of the people said. Buying Jet would boost Wal-Mart’s e-commerce operations, which have been showing slower growth in recent quarters. Jet.com, valued at more than US$1 billion after its last fundraising round, reached a US$1 billion run rate in sales last month, according to one of the people. Last month’s sales also beat internal forecasts, the person said.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it plans to resume operations at two coal-fired power generators for three months to boost security of electricity supply as liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply risks are running high due to the Middle East conflict. The two coal-fired power generators are at Mailiao Power Plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮). The plant, operated by Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), supplied electricity to Taipower’s power grid until the end of last year. Taipower’s decision came about one month after Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) on March 10 said that the nation had no imminent
Some robotaxi passengers were left stranded in the middle of fast-moving traffic in a major Chinese city after their driverless vehicles stopped running, according to police and media reports on Wednesday. A preliminary investigation indicates more than 100 robotaxis came to a halt because of a “system malfunction,” police in the city of Wuhan said in a statement, without elaborating. No injuries were reported. One passenger told Chinese media that their robotaxi stopped after turning a corner. An instruction on a screen read: “Driving system malfunction. Staff are expected to arrive in 5 minutes.” After no one showed up, the passenger pushed
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