Thu, May 06, 2021 page10

• World Business Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  PHARMACEUTICALS

  Pfizer profits from vaccines

  Selling vaccines during a pandemic has boosted Pfizer Inc’s bottom line and proven that a strategy it embarked upon more than a decade ago is now paying off handsomely. The New York-based pharmaceutical giant on Tuesday reported that it earned US$4.9 billion in the first three months of this year and it dramatically raised its profit forecast for the full year, thanks to strong demand for its COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer almost doubled its sales projections for the vaccine this year, from US$15 billion to about US$26 billion. The company, along with its German partner BioNTech AG, anticipate strong revenue from the vaccine and booster shots for the next three years. The partners expect to deliver about 2.5 billion vaccine doses this year, including 300 million doses for the US, and are prepping for what could become annual booster shots.

  LOGISTICS

  Maersk upbeat for this year

  Maersk A/S yesterday said that it expects an “exceptionally strong” performance in the first quarter to continue for the rest of the year, driven by high demand for shipping containers from China to the US. “Strong demand led to bottlenecks, as well as lack of capacity and equipment, which drove up freight rates to record high levels,” CEO Soren Skou said in a statement. Those factors prompted Maersk last week to raise its outlook for full-year underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to between US$13 billion and US$15 billion from US$8.5 billion and US$10.5 billion. It also lifted its forecast for global container demand growth to 5 to 7 percent from 3 to 5 percent. Maersk, the world’s biggest container shipper, confirmed the 30 percent rise in first-quarter revenue announced in a preliminary trading statement last week and reiterated its upbeat profit outlook for this year.

  SEMICONDUCTORS

  NXP sells US$2bn of bonds

  NXP Semiconductors NV sold US$2 billion of bonds to help finance the development of semiconductors that reduce energy consumption in products like power adapters and electric vehicles. The chipmaker issued bonds in two parts, said a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified as the details are private. The longer portion of the deal, a 20-year security, yields 1.15 percentage points above US Treasuries, down from the initially targeted 1.5 percent premium, the person said. That equates to about 3.3 percent. The money would partly fund research and development for innovation in green chips, battery control and energy management for electric and hybrid vehicles, smart-building technologies, as well as energy-efficiency measures at its facilities, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

  CRYPTOCURRENCY

  Dogecoin surge crashes app

  Investors are piling back into some of the fringe corners of the cryptocurrency world, with the frenzy sending dogecoin surging more than 50 percent again and crashing Robinhood Markets Inc’s trading app. Other so-called altcoins also took off, with dash spiking 18 percent over a 24-hour period through yesterday morning in Europe and ethereum classic rising almost 45 percent. In the world of decentralized finance, tokens such as force DAO and tierion surged more than 1,000 percent on Tuesday, CoinMarketCap.com data showed. Robinhood said it resolved earlier issues with crypto trading on its platform. The rallies defied easy explanation and continued a trend that has seen the value of all digital tokens surge past US$2.3 trillion.
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