IN THE PAPERS
In The Papers 24 July
24-07-2009
by Sylvia Leatham
Cork firms wins STG100,000 UK grant | Vodafone revenues fall
The Irish Times reports that Irish people who try to buy products from the website of US retail giant Abercrombie & Fitch are being stopped from making purchases due to an import restriction error. The fashion label refuses to deliver items to Ireland when ordered online. The company says it cannot export its Chinese-made clothes lines to Ireland because of an EU rule governing the trade of Chinese textiles. However, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment said the EU's import restriction on such textiles was lifted at the end of last year. It was "very strange that a US retailer is not making themselves aware of changes to EU markets", a spokesman for the department said.
The Irish Independent says that nearly one-third of Irish consumers are spending less on their mobile phone bills, according to a survey by ComReg. Read more on this story on ENN.
The Irish Examiner says that Cork-based Yougetitback.com has been awarded a grant of STG100,000 to develop and launch a solution to combat mobile phone theft. The company was chosen as one of four winners of the Mobile Phone Security Challenge, part of Design Out Crime, an initiative by the UK Home Office. The company, with partners Data Transfer Communications and PDD, were one of four teams awarded STG100,000 to develop a solution to combat mobile phone theft.
The Financial Times reports that underlying revenues at Vodafone's core European businesses continued to fall in the first quarter. Although revenue for the three months to 30 June increased 9.3 percent to STG10.7 billion, the gains were largely attributable to the effects of favourable currency moves and acquisitions. Underlying group organic service revenue fell 2.1 percent, with Europe, the main source of weakness in recent quarters, falling 4.4 percent. Further declines are predicted in the coming months, although CEO Vittorio Colao maintained full-year guidance of adjusted operating profit in the range of STG11 billion to STG11.8 billion, based on growth in emerging markets and cost-cutting.
The paper also says that Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor, the world's largest memory chipmakers, have released strong second-quarter results that could fuel hopes for a recovery in the industry. Samsung posted 5.2 percent growth in net profit to KRW2,254 billion (USD1.8 billion) from KRW2,142 billion a year ago on higher chip prices and brisk sales of mobile phones and flat screen televisions. Sales jumped 16 percent to KRW21,020 billion. Hynix, Samsung's smaller rival, recorded its seventh straight quarterly net loss, but the amount was sharply lower than the last quarter as chip prices began to recover.
According to the Wall Street Journal, software giant Microsoft posted a 29 percent decline in quarterly profit and weak sales across all units. In its fiscal fourth quarter, income came in at USD3.05 billion, or USD0.34 a share, compared with USD4.3 billion, or USD0.46 a share, a year earlier. Sales slid across all divisions, with the unit that houses the flagship Windows operating system hit especially hard. The quarter capped Microsoft's first full year of declining sales since it went public more than two decades ago. However, executives struck a bullish note for the future, predicting the PC and server markets could see growth in 2010.
The paper also says that internet retail giant Amazon saw sales rise 14 percent to USD4.65 billion in the second quarter. North American sales rose 13 percent to USD2.45 billion, while international sales in the UK, France, Germany, Japan and China rose 16 percent to USD2.2 billion. The growth was driven by a 35 percent increase in consumer electronics and other general merchandise sales. Amazon's earnings fell 10 percent to USD142 million, or USD0.32 per diluted share, from last year, hit by a USD51 million payment in a legal settlement to Toys R Us. Amazon predicted that its third-quarter sales would grow in the range of 11 percent to 23 percent.
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