Huawei Technologies Co (華為) posted its first quarterly net loss in years after the company spent aggressively on research in areas from electric vehicles (EVs) to chips while the business as a whole slowed.
The Shenzhen-based networking and electronics leader reported a 9.5 percent annual rise in revenue to about 276 billion yuan (US$38.1 billion) in the December quarter last year, according to Bloomberg’s calculations based on annual results.
Huawei took a big step forward in chipmaking and smartphones last year, when it debuted its own fully in-house operating system and began to compete with Nvidia Corp domestically on artificial intelligence (AI) server chips.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Hit by a series of US sanctions, Huawei spent heavily on research and development (R&D).
The company posted a net loss of about 300 million yuan for the December quarter of last year, compared with a net profit of 13.9 billion yuan a year previously when the company recorded gains from previous asset sales.
Overall, the company made a net profit of 62.6 billion yuan last year, down 28 percent from 87 billion yuan in 2023.
A Huawei spokesperson in a statement said that profit slipped last year because it “continued to increase... future-oriented investment and there were no gains from the sale of businesses.”
Huawei said it plowed 179.7 billion yuan into R&D last year, up 9.1 percent from 2023 and about one-fifth of overall revenue.
Revenue last year rose 22 percent year-on-year to 862.1 billion yuan, the highest since the figure surpassed 890 billion yuan in 2020.
Most of that came from its information and communication technology infrastructure business and consumer products — which encompass handsets, wearables and laptops — followed by cloud computing and telecom business.
The results were “in line with forecast,” Huawei’s rotating chairwoman Sabrina Meng (孟晚舟) said in a statement.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Pegatron Corp (和碩), an iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, is to spend NT$5.64 billion (US$186.82 million) to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) factories in Taoyuan and invest NT$578.57 million in its India subsidiary to expand manufacturing capacity, after its board approved the plans on Wednesday. The Taoyuan factories would expand production of consumer electronics, and communication and computing devices, while the India investment would boost production of communications devices and possibly automotive electronics later, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. Pegatron expects to complete the Taoyuan factory transaction in the third quarter, said the official, who declined to be