AUTOMAKERS
Honda expects profit
Honda Motor Co forecast profit for the current fiscal year, slightly exceeding analysts’ projections, thanks to a recovery in automobile production, drops in some material prices, as well as robust sales of motorcycles. Honda also said it plans to buy back as much as ￥200 billion (US$1.5 billion) of its own shares. Operating profit for the period through March next year would be ￥1 trillion, the company said in a statement yesterday. That compares with analysts’ average projection for ￥996 billion. Honda said net sales are on track to reach ￥18.2 trillion, in line with the ￥18.1 trillion the market is looking for.
CHEMICALS
Bayer looks at low profit
Bayer AG expects profit this year would probably be at the lower end of its forecast amid falling prices for glyphosate, the key ingredient in its controversial weedkiller Roundup. The German conglomerate had anticipated core earnings per share for the year in the range of 7.20 euros to 7.40 euros. It now expects to hit the lower end of its targets, chief executive officer Werner Baumann said in a statement. In the first quarter, the company’s core earnings dropped 16 percent to 2.95 euros per share, a little above the 2.75 euros analysts had anticipated. Revenue fell to 14.4 billion euros (US$15.74 billion), roughly in line with estimates.
AVIATION
Emirates posts record profit
Long-haul carrier Emirates last year saw its most-profitable year ever, earning US$2.9 billion, the carrier said yesterday. Emirates’ annual report put revenue for the carrier at US$29 billion last year, up 81 percent from 2021’s figures of US$16 billion. That drastic swing came after the airline reported a US$1.1 billion loss in 2021. Earlier yesterday, Emirates announced that it would create a US$200 million fund for research and development projects aimed at reducing the use of fossil fuels in commercial aviation. The airline said the funding would be distributed over three years.
AUTOMAKERS
Nissan profit tops estimates
Nissan Motor Co yesterday said that its full-year net profit slightly topped estimates and offered an upbeat forecast for the current fiscal year, despite warning of “challenging” conditions ahead. The Japanese automaker said it logged net profit of ￥221 billion for the year to March, just beating its prediction of ￥220 billion, and projected ￥315 billion for the coming year. The company said the gains were the result of sales improvements and cost-cutting, as well as favorable foreign exchange rate fluctuations. These helped offset the effects of an increase in raw material prices and inflation.
ITALY
Probe opened into Apple
The country’s antitrust regulator yesterday said that it has opened an investigation into tech giant Apple Inc for allegedly abusing a dominant position in the apps market. The Silicon Valley titan “has adopted a more restrictive privacy policy for third-party app developers than it applies to itself,” the competition watchdog said in a statement. The “alleged discriminatory conduct” could cause a drop in advertising revenues of third-party advertisers and prevent competitors from entering or remaining in the app development and distribution market, benefiting Apple’s own apps, it added.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
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