AUTOMAKERS
hosn to head Mitsubishi
Nissan Motor Co and Renault SA chairman Carlos Ghosn is set to add that title at Mitsubishi Motors Corp, people with knowledge of the matter said, putting him on track to become the first executive to head three different automakers at the same time. Nissan is acquiring a 34 percent stake in Mitsubishi Motors, which sought a rescue following an admission that it improperly measured for fuel economy and manipulated testing data. Mitsubishi yesterday forecast a steeper loss, its first in eight years, due to costs tied to the scandal. The Tokyo-based automaker said the net loss for the fiscal year ending March 31 would probably balloon to ￥240 billion (US$2.32 billion) from an earlier prediction of a deficit of ￥145 billion.
AUTOMAKERS
Ford cuts production
Ford Motor Co is cutting production as US demand for new vehicles slows. The company on Tuesday said it would temporarily idle four of its North American assembly plants this month to better align production with demand. After six consecutive years of growth, US sales of new vehicles are slowing. In the first nine months of the year, US sales totaled 13.1 million new vehicles, up less than 1 percent from the same period last year. Rivals General Motors Co and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV on Tuesday both said that all of their plants are operating normally.
RETAIL
Carrefour beats estimates
Carrefour SA, France’s largest retailer, reported third-quarter revenue that beat analysts’ estimates on stronger-than-expected growth in its home country. Sales rose 3.2 percent on a like-for-like basis to 21.8 billion euros (US$23.97 billion), Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based Carrefour said in a statement yesterday. Analysts expected 21.7 billion euros. In France, sales climbed 1.2 percent, beating the estimate of 0.5 percent growth. Carrefour shares have fallen 12 percent this year, compared with a 9.4 percent decline in the STOXX 600 Retail Index.
ENERGY
Shanghai eyes K-Electric
Shanghai Electric Power Co (上海電力) is nearing a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Pakistani utility K-Electric Ltd from buyout firm Abraaj Group, people familiar with the matter said. The state-backed Chinese company has been in exclusive negotiations to buy Abraaj’s 66 percent stake in the US$2.4 billion power generator, the people said. A formal agreement could come as early as this week, though the timing is still fluid, the people said. Pakistani regulations would require Shanghai Electric to make a mandatory offer to minority shareholders of K-Electric, the people said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
ASML forecast surprises
ASML Holding NV, Europe’s largest semiconductor-equipment maker, forecast profitability above analysts’ estimates in the final three months of the year. Gross margin will be as high as 48 percent in the fourth quarter, the Veldhoven, Netherlands-based company said in a statement yesterday. That prediction compared with the average estimate of 43.6 percent as more customers ordered its so-called extreme ultraviolet lithography technology. Revenue in the fourth quarter will be 1.7 billion euros to 1.8 billion euros, ASML forecast. The company reported its third-quarter sales rose 17 percent to 1.82 billion euros, while net income rose 23 percent to 396 million euros.
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
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
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