BANKING
UBS profit beats forecasts
Swiss banking giant UBS AG yesterday reported better-than-expected quarterly results alongside a cautious outlook due to current turmoil in the markets. UBS said its third-quarter net profit jumped 32 percent from a year earlier to 1.2 billion Swiss francs (US$1.2 billion), boosted by its asset management unit. Analysts had forecast a net profit of SF995 million. Revenue came in as expected at SF7.2 billion, up 2 percent. UBS maintained its current year-end estimates on the basis that current global growth rates still offered business opportunities.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft profit surges 34%
Microsoft Corp’s expansion beyond its empire in PC software paid off again in its fiscal first quarter as it mined new revenue sources in online subscriptions, gaming and its LinkedIn professional networking service. The company on Wednesday said that it earned US$8.8 billion during the three months ending in September, a 34 percent increase from last year. Earnings per share came in at US$1.14 to top the average estimate of US$0.96 per share among analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research. Revenue rose 19 percent from last year to US$29.1 billion, also easily topping the average analyst prediction of US$27.7 billion, according to Zacks.
TECHNOLOGY
Nokia to cut jobs
Nokia Oyj said it would cut an unspecified number jobs as part of a program to save 700 million euros (US$798 million) in costs after the Finnish maker of networks posted third-quarter operating profit that missed analysts’ estimates. In the third quarter, the margin was 5 percent. Quarterly adjusted operating profit of 487 million euros missed the average analyst estimate of 515.8 million euros. Still, the result was an improvement compared with the first two quarters of this year and Nokia expects earnings to accelerate in the last three months of the year.
SPORTSWEAR
Puma lifts annual outlook
German sportswear group Puma AG yesterday raised its outlook for this year after a stronger-than-expected third quarter, boosted by a new basketball shoe and some celebrity sparkle from model Adriana Lima and Barcelona striker Luis Suarez. The company’s net profit rose 25 percent year-on-year in the quarter ending last month to 77.5 million euros. Operating profit soared 28 percent to 130 million euros, the company said. Sales increased 11 percent to 1.2 billion euros, lifted by double-digit growth in the Americas and Asia-Pacific region. The firm now expects currency-adjusted sales for the full year to increase 14 to 16 percent, compared with an earlier guidance of 12 to 14 percent. Operating profit is now forecast to come in at 325 million to 335 million euros, up from 310 million to 330 million previously.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai Q3 profit plunges
Hyundai Motor Co reported a 67 percent plunge in third-quarter net profit from a year earlier after overseas sales slowed and currency swings hurt its bottom line in emerging markets. Net profit for the quarter ending last month was 306 billion won (US$268.8 million), while operating profit fell 76 percent to 288.9 billion won, the firm said in a statement. The weakening of the Brazilian and Russian currencies and slowing sales in China also took a toll on Hyundai’s bottom line, it said, adding that the Brazilian real lost more than 20 percent against the won in the past 12 months.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
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
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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