Hong Kong sank on Friday on an otherwise mixed day for Asian markets, with Chinese ecommerce titan Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) tanking more than 10 percent after warning of a weaker outlook.
Alibaba on Thursday said that net profit tumbled 81 percent in the second quarter and revenue grew less than forecast as it was hit by slowing economic growth and a government crackdown on the technology sector.
The firm said income growth over the rest of the fiscal year fell short of expectations, adding that certain factors could further affect results including “changes in laws, regulations and [the] regulatory environment,” such as those related to privacy and data.
The 10.7 percent loss in Alibaba’s Hong Kong stock reflected a more than 11 percent fall in its New York shares and comes after a year that has seen the firm in the crosshairs of Beijing’s regulatory drive to rein in firms it thought were growing too powerful.
With Alibaba a big player on Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, the market on Friday dropped 1.07 percent to 25,049.97, and lost 1.1 percent on the week.
Other tech firms experienced smaller losses.
In Taiwan, the TAIEX closed down 23.06 points, or 0.13 percent, at 17,818.31, but rose 1.71 percent from a week earlier.
India’s SENSEX lost 0.62 percent to 59,636.01 and 0.47 percent for the week.
However, Tokyo climbed as the government announced plans to inject US$490 billion into the Japanese economy to boost recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Nikkei 225 rose 0.5 percent to 29,745.87, posting a weekly gain of 0.46 percent, while the broader TOPIX increased 0.44 percent to 2,044.53, rising 0.19 percent weekly.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.13 percent to 3,560.37, up 0.6 percent from a week earlier.
South Korea’s KOSPI grew 0.8 percent to 2,971.02, posting a weekly increase of 0.07 percent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.23 percent at 7,396.5, but dropped 0.63 percent from a week earlier.
Additional reporting by staff writer with CNA
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
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
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the