AUTOMAKERS
Jose Munoz leaves Nissan
Nissan Motor Co chief performance officer Jose Munoz, who took a leave of absence a week ago, has resigned, the first high-profile departure at the Japanese automaker publicly acknowledged as related to the arrest of former chairman Carlos Ghosn. Munoz said in a statement on LinkedIn yesterday that he made the decision after serious thinking, because the company was “involved in matters that have and will continue to divert its focus,” referring to Ghosn’s case. Nissan confirmed the resignation, effective immediately.
CHINA
Premier explains tax cuts
Tax cuts for smaller companies are mainly intended to support employment and ensure economic stability, Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) was quoted as saying in a statement posted to the government’s Web site yesterday. The State Council, or cabinet, anounced on Wednesday that it would further reduce taxes for smaller companies.
AVIATION
Vietnamese carrier launches
Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways, after repeated delays, is to start commercial flights on Wednesday, the company said in an e-mailed statement. The carrier set minimum ticket prices at 149,000 dong (US$6.39) each. The carrier would initially operate 37 domestic routes, the company said in a separate statement. Bamboo Airways would also launch international flights to Asian countries this year, starting with Japan, Korea and Singapore, it said.
TOURISM
Portugal mulls Brexit plan
Portugal wants to exempt British tourists, a major revenue source, from entry visa requirements if Britain crashes out of the EU without a negotiated deal, Lisbon said on Friday. “We are working ... on creating obstacle-free corridors that will allow fluidity for British citizens entering the national territory” at airports, Portuguese Minister of the Interior Eduardo Cabrita told reporters. About 2.6 million British tourists fly into Portugal every year, and many retire there. Lisbon has urged Britons living in Portugal to register at their town halls before March 29, the day Britain is due to leave the European bloc.
BANKING
BNP to shut trading arm
BNP Paribas SA, the biggest French bank, is shuttering its 2.5 billion euro (US$2.87 billion) proprietary trading arm, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Opera Trading Capital division of the lender, which makes risky bets with shareholders’ funds, struggled to make a profit last year amid market volatility, one of the people said. BNP Paribas has told its employees and begun informing prime brokers and counterparties about the plan, the people said.
INTERNET
German HuffPost to close
The German version of the news and views Web site HuffPost is shutting down. German publisher BurdaForward on Friday said that HuffPost Deutschland would cease operations on March 31. BurdaForward had licensed the German version of the site in 2013, running its news and revenue streams. The firm said it was ending its cooperation with HuffPost “because the partners are now pursuing different business strategies.”
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
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