Japan’s Panasonic Corp yesterday announced an annual net loss of ¥378.96 billion (US$3.95 billion) owing to the economic downturn and warned its bottom line would stay in the red this year.
The group, which is in the midst of cutting 15,000 jobs and closing dozens of plants, said it expected to lose ¥195 billion for the current business year to March because of weak sales and restructuring costs.
GRIM RESULTS
The figures are the latest in a slew of grim earnings results from Japan’s high-tech heavyweights, which are reeling from a slump in exports.
Panasonic said its revenue fell 14.4 percent in the year to March to ¥7.77 trillion, hit by sluggish demand for plasma televisions, digital cameras, semiconductors and home appliances.
Operating profit plunged 86 percent to ¥72.9 billion.
The group, which changed its corporate name from Matsushita Electric Industrial in October, expects its sales to slump 10 percent this year, but it aims to boost operating profit by 3 percent to ¥75 billion.
ELECTRONICS
Other Japanese electronics makers are also in the red because of the global economic crisis, which has sapped demand for their products and pushed up the value of the yen, reducing their export earnings.
Sony on Thursday announced its first annual loss in 14 years, while Hitachi announced earlier in the week that it went more than US$8 billion into the red, the biggest-ever deficit posted by a Japanese manufacturer.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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