AVIATION
Boeing sells 110 planes
Vietnam’s Bamboo Airways and VietJet Aviation JSC have signed deals to buy 110 aircraft from Boeing Co during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Hanoi for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Bamboo agreed to purchase 10 787-9 Dreamliners for about US$3 billion, while VietJet’s order is for 100 737 Max planes valued at US$12.7 billion, Boeing said yesterday. However, VietJet’s 100-plane commitment was announced at the Farnborough Air Show in England last year. The agreements were signed in the presence of Trump and Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong. Vietnam’s airlines are expanding their fleets as the region’s growing economies are spurring many to fly for the first time. Demand is also expected to climb after US regulators last month approved the nation’s air-safety system, making its airlines eligible to begin direct flights to the US.
RESTAURANTS
Papa John’s sales decline
Papa John’s closed out a tough year on a weak note, but says it expects improvement this year. The Louisville, Kentucky-based pizza chain on Tuesday said that sales at established locations in North America dropped 8 percent in the fourth quarter last year compared with the same period the previous year. International same-store sales were down 3 percent. Papa John’s lost US$14 million, or US$0.44 per share, in the fourth quarter. Excluding one-time items, the company earned US$0.15 per share. Analysts had expected US$0.17. Papa John’s said its fourth-quarter revenue fell 20 percent to US$374 million.
EQUITIES
Emerging markets riskier
Investors who put their money in emerging-market equities back in 1900 have failed to match the returns of their counterparts in advanced economies, according to a Credit Suisse-backed study by London Business School. One US dollar invested in developed markets in 1900 was worth US$11,821 by last year, compared with just US$3,745 in emerging markets. Investors can blame World War II and the Chinese revolution. From 1945 to 1949 equities lost 98 percent of their value in Japan, which was not classified as a developed market until 1967, while their counterparts in China were all but wiped out financially by the Chinese Communist Party’s victory in 1949. It is a different story since 1950, though, as emerging markets have generated annual returns of 11.7 percent, compared with 10.5 percent for advanced economies.
AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai to invest US$40bn
Hyundai Motor Co joined automakers pledging massive spending in the years ahead to address the industry’s transformation and fend off new competition from the likes of Tesla Inc. The South Korean maker of Sonata sedans and Tucson SUVs plans to invest 45.3 trillion won (US$40 billion) in the next five years in development of electric and autonomous vehicles, as well as transportation services. The average annual spending would be 58 percent more than over the past five years, the firm said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Mylan shares fall 9.2%
Shares of Mylan NV, one of the world’s biggest makers of generic drugs, fell in late trading on Tuesday after it forecast declining earnings this year and said that its North American sales slowed in the fourth quarter last year. The company sees adjusted earnings per share for the year of US$3.80 to US$4.80, below the US$5.02 average of Wall Street estimates. Mylan shares fell 9.2 percent.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
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