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.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS