LUXURY GOODS
Kering profit up 14 percent
France’s second-largest luxury group Kering SA’s profit climbed 14 percent to 3.6 billion euros (US$3.86 billion) last year despite a drop in fourth-quarter earnings at flagship brand Gucci, the company said yesterday. “All our Houses posted record revenues and contributed to higher operating income in 2022. But these good performances were not uniformly up to our ambitions and potential,” group chairman Francois-Henri Pinault said in a statement. Sales soared 15 percent to 20 billion euros. Gucci’s sales dropped 11 percent in the fourth quarter, as sales in China slowed down, financial director Jean-Marc Duplaix said.
BREWERS
Heineken sales jump
Heineken NV yesterday reported a jump in sales last year after the Dutch brewer raised prices in the face of higher inflation, but its net profit fell. The maker of Heineken, Amstel and Sol beers maintained its outlook unchanged for this year, forecasting its operating profit to grow in the mid to high single-digit percentages. The company reported a net profit of 2.7 billion euros for last year, down 19 percent from 2021. Revenue surged more than 30 percent to almost 35 billion euros as the company raised prices due to higher costs while volumes returned to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels, with a “sharp” rebound in the Asia-Pacific region.
LODGING
Airbnb posts first profit
Airbnb Inc on Tuesday posted record numbers for last year, including its first annual profit, and said it continues to see strong demand for travel carry over into the new year despite economic uncertainty and high inflation. The San Francisco-based company said it earned US$319 million in the fourth quarter, up from US$55 million a year earlier, and US$1.89 billion for the full year. Spurred by an increase in bookings, fourth-quarter revenue rose 24 percent from a year earlier. The company predicted that first-quarter revenue would be US$1.75 billion to US$1.82 billion, which would beat Wall Street expectations.
BANKING
Barclays misses targets
A flurry of volatility in the final three months of last year was not enough for Barclays PLC’s traders, who missed estimates in fixed income and equities. While fixed-income trading revenue rose to ￡976 million (US$1.18 billion), helping the bank notch its best ever performance in markets for the year, the results still fell short of estimates. Equities trading revenue of ￡440 million also missed expectations. The worse-than-expected results weighed on profit before tax, which dropped 8 percent to ￡1.3 billion. That was also worse than the ￡1.44 billion analysts in a Bloomberg survey were expecting.
TOURISM
Japan visitors near 1.5m
Visitors to Japan climbed to nearly 1.5 million last month, the national tourism agency said yesterday, showing an accelerating recovery in tourism after the Japanese government scrapped COVID-19 curbs in October last year. The number of foreign visitors for business and leisure rose to 1,497,300 last month from 1,370,000 in December last year, the Japan National Tourism Organization said in a news release. More than one-third of the arrivals were from South Korea, it said. Arrivals were down 44 percent from January 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic began.
DIVIDED VIEWS: Although the Fed agreed on holding rates steady, some officials see no rate cuts for this year, while 10 policymakers foresee two or more cuts There are a lot of unknowns about the outlook for the economy and interest rates, but US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled at least one thing seems certain: Higher prices are coming. Fed policymakers voted unanimously to hold interest rates steady at a range of 4.25 percent to 4.50 percent for a fourth straight meeting on Wednesday, as they await clarity on whether tariffs would leave a one-time or more lasting mark on inflation. Powell said it is still unclear how much of the bill would fall on the shoulders of consumers, but he expects to learn more about tariffs
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
NOT JUSTIFIED: The bank’s governor said there would only be a rate cut if inflation falls below 1.5% and economic conditions deteriorate, which have not been detected The central bank yesterday kept its key interest rates unchanged for a fifth consecutive quarter, aligning with market expectations, while slightly lowering its inflation outlook amid signs of cooling price pressures. The move came after the US Federal Reserve held rates steady overnight, despite pressure from US President Donald Trump to cut borrowing costs. Central bank board members unanimously voted to maintain the discount rate at 2 percent, the secured loan rate at 2.375 percent and the overnight lending rate at 4.25 percent. “We consider the policy decision appropriate, although it suggests tightening leaning after factoring in slackening inflation and stable GDP growth,”
PLANS: MSI is also planning to upgrade its service center in the Netherlands Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) yesterday said it plans to set up a server assembly line at its Poland service center this year at the earliest. The computer and peripherals manufacturer expects that the new server assembly line would shorten transportation times in shipments to European countries, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times by telephone. MSI manufactures motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, servers, optical storage devices and communication devices. The company operates plants in Taiwan and China, and runs a global network of service centers. The company is also considering upgrading its service center in the Netherlands into a
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