TOURISM
Airbnb exits China
Airbnb Inc yesterday announced that it would stop representing short-term rental properties in China and focus its business in the nation on serving Chinese tourists looking for lodgings abroad. Airbnb joins a series of foreign Internet companies, including Yahoo Inc and eBay Inc, that have pulled out of China after running into fierce local competition and regulatory barriers. “We have made the difficult decision to refocus our efforts in China on outbound travel and suspend our homes and Experiences of Hosts in China, starting from July 30, 2022,” Airbnb China chief strategy officer Nathan Blecharczyk said in a statement on its social media account.
AUDITORS
KPMG, Sykes fined
The UK’s Financial Reporting Council has fined KPMG and its partner Anthony Sykes over its 2010 audit of Rolls-Royce Group PLC, the latest in a long list of audit scandals surrounding the firm. KPMG was ordered to pay ￡3.4 million (US$4.3 million), reduced from an original fine of ￡4.5 million because the firm admitted its shortcomings, the Financial Reporting Council said in a statement yesterday. An external independent expert is to assess the firm’s policies, guidance and procedures for audit work. Sykes must pay a sanction of ￡112,500, which was also reduced for admissions and early disposal from ￡150,000.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Snap lowers its forecasts
Snap Inc has cut its revenue and profit forecasts below the low end of its previous guidance, sending its shares plunging as much as 31 percent on Monday. The company is also to slow hiring, filling 500 roles before the end of the year, Snap chief executive officer Evan Spiegel said in a note to staff. “Like many companies, we continue to face rising inflation and interest rates, supply chain shortages and labor disruptions, platform policy changes, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and more,” he wrote in the memo. The company’s second-quarter forecast, for 20 to 25 percent year-on-year revenue growth, was already below analysts’ estimates.
AIRLINES
Carrier to issue new shares
Air France-KLM yesterday announced a bid to raise 2.26 billion euros (US$2.42 billion) by issuing new shares, as the debt-laden company seeks to put the COVID-19 crisis that has ravaged its finances behind it. The pandemic cost the Franco-Dutch airline about 11 billion euros over two years, after travel ground to a halt. The airline has about 7.7 billion euros of debt, despite massive bailouts by the French and Dutch governments, which own minority stakes in the former flag carriers that merged in 2004.
BANKING
UBS clients holding funds
UBS Group AG chief executive officer Ralph Hamers said the Swiss bank’s wealth clients are staying invested while holding back from putting new funds to work because of the uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis. Hamers expects greater clarity on the direction of markets within the next three months as the world comes to terms with the aftershocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and the situation in China, as well as soaring energy prices and the Russian invasion, he said in a Bloomberg TV interview from Davos, Switzerland, yesterday. “We had to digest three major shocks: the pandemic shock, the war shock and the energy transition shock,” Hamers said.
China’s chip industry is growing faster than anywhere else in the world, after US sanctions on local champions — from Huawei Technologies Co (華為) to Hikvision Digital Technology Co (海康威視) — spurred appetite for homegrown components. Nineteen of the world’s 20 fastest-growing chip industry firms over the past four quarters, on average, hail from the world’s No. 2 economy, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. That compared with just eight firms at the same point last year. Revenue at China-based suppliers of design software, processors and gear vital to chipmaking is increasing at several times the pace of global leaders Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co
POSITIVE SIGNS: GlobalWafers has continued to sign long-term supply agreements, most of which exceed 2028, and aside from one factory, it is running at full capacity GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s third-largest silicon wafer maker, yesterday said that Samsung Electronics Co and most of its customers have not scaled back on orders, or delayed shipments, even though consumer spending has shifted away from smartphones and notebook computers due to mounting inflation pressures. Rising inflation has altered consumers’ spending habits, dampening sales of consumer electronics, the Hsinchu-based company said. However, customers all honored their supply agreements by adjusting their product mix and shifting to applications that are still reporting robust growth, it said. Aside from one 6-inch factory, GlobalWafers’ 15 factories around the world are running at 100 percent
Had Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck hopped on an electric scooter rather than a Vespa in the classic film Roman Holiday, their spin around the Eternal City might have ended in tears. The number of crashes and near-misses involving the two-wheelers has prompted Rome authorities to impose some order on a booming rental market that began two years ago. The havoc came to a head earlier this month when two US tourists attempted a night-time drive down the Spanish Steps, causing more than 25,000 euros (US$26,392) worth of damage to the 18th-century monument. Caught on security footage, the couple in their late 20s
Nearly a quarter of European companies in China are considering shifting their investments out of the country as COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns dim the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy, a survey showed. About 23 percent of the businesses that responded to the survey are thinking of moving their current or planned investments away from China, a report released yesterday by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China said. The survey was conducted at the end of April, when Shanghai was still in shut down and restrictions in places like Jilin Province disrupted business activity. The number of European firms reassessing
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