Siemens AG saw orders largely stagnate in the fiscal first quarter as factory-automation purchases in China more than halved, offsetting gains in other units.
Orders plummeted 31 percent from a year earlier for the digital industries division, mainly driven by weaker private consumption in China, the company said yesterday. Siemens left its outlook for the unit and the overall group unchanged and said it sees the Chinese economy recovering later this year.
“The Chinese market is still very slow,” Siemens chief executive officer Roland Busch said. “We hope that we will see a pick-up in China in the second half of the year.”
Photo: REUTERS
Siemens and the rest of the industrial sector are grappling with weaker demand in China, where consumers and businesses have cut back on spending amid rising inflation and interest rates. The company expects China’s economy to recover in the second half of the year with the government’s push to boost high-tech manufacturing.
In recent years, Siemens has revamped its business to focus on software-driven product lines with higher profitability levels, and Busch has said Siemens could target larger acquisitions in that area this year. The company is also pursuing plans for an initial public offering or divestment of heavy-duty electric-motor manufacturer Innomotics, valued at roughly 3 billion euros (US$3.2 billion).
Siemens’ mobility unit saw orders nearly double from the same period a year earlier, largely due to two orders in Austria totaling 1.3 billion euros from existing agreements for delivery of trains.
Net income attributable to shareholders came in at 2.39 billion euros in the last quarter, boosted by a one-off 500 million euros gain from the transfer of an 8 percent stake in Siemens Energy AG to Siemens Pension-Trust e.V.
Some shareholders have urged Siemens to unload its stake in Siemens Energy, as the company posted massive losses from faulty wind turbines. Siemens said the transfer means it no longer has significant influence over Siemens Energy, and the investment is not expected to impact earnings per share going forward.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors