AUTOMAKERS
Ford profit plummets 90%
Ford Motor Co on Thursday reported that its fourth-quarter net income fell 90 percent from a year earlier, leading company officials to say the automaker’s costs are too high and to pledge more belt-tightening this year. CEO Jim Farley said Ford should have done better last year, and it left US$2 billion in profits on the table that were within its control. He said Ford would correct that with improved urgency and execution this year. Chief financial officer John Lawler said about US$1 billion of the US$2 billion in lost profits was due to lower production and lost sales, the other US$1 billion was in operational costs. He attributed about 60 percent of the production problem to the chip shortage, with the rest coming from parts suppliers that had trouble ramping up factories. For this year, Lawler sees US sales rising to about 15 million vehicles, which he said should help increase Ford’s sales.
MOTORBIKES
ALI listing on NASDAQ
A Japanese maker of flying motorbikes was expected to begin trading on the NASDAQ as early as yesterday, making it the fifth Japanese firm to join the tech-heavy bourse, people familiar with the matter said. Tokyo-based ALI Technologies Inc was going public through a merger with the blank-check firm Pono Capital Corp. Under terms of the deal, ALI Technologies is become a fully owned unit of its US arm, Aerwins Technologies, the people said, asking not to be named because the information was not yet public. Its market cap is expected to be at least US$600 million, in line with its target last year, despite a market selloff. A company representative said that a special purpose acquisition company listing is in progress, but details have yet to be decided.
RETAIL
Amazon profit disappoints
Amazon.com Inc on Thursday posted worse-than-expected fourth-quarter profits, but its revenue beat expectations, boosted by sales in its cloud-computing unit AWS, which is also seeing a slowdown in growth. Amazon said it earned US$300 million, or US$0.03 per share, in the October-December quarter. Industry analysts were expecting the company to earn US$0.17 a share, according to FactSet. The e-commerce giant said its bottom line was dented by a US$2.3 billion write-down of the value of its stock investment in electric-vehicle start-up Rivian Automotive. Amazon’s fourth-quarter profits represent a significant drop from the US$14.3 billion it posted during the same period in 2021, when the company had a nearly US$12 billion gain from its investment in Rivian. Amazon said its overall revenue rose 9 percent to US$149.2 billion, higher than the US$145.7 billion analysts were expecting. It said it expects revenue of between US$121 billion and US$126 billion this quarter. Analysts forecast US$125 billion.
HOSPITALITY
China job openings surge
Chinese hotels and restaurants are seeking employees amid a demand recovery in the services sector after the end of Beijing’s zero-COVID protocols, with a survey by a leading recruiter showing a surge in job openings in the hospitality industry. During the first six days of work after the Lunar New Year holiday, job openings in the hotel and catering sectors surged 40 percent from the same period a year earlier, a survey published yesterday by recruiting firm Zhaopin (智聯招聘) showed. Passenger vehicle and freight truck drivers and airplane and train crews are also badly needed, with job openings jumping by 85.2 percent over the same period, due to busy transport and logistics sectors.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
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