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.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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