COMPANY NEWS IN BRIEF

Microsoft offers strong forecast

Microsoft Corp on Tuesday forecast revenue for the current quarter broadly ahead of Wall Street targets, driven in part by its Intelligent Cloud unit.

The outlook soothed concerns about growth sparked by results for the December quarter, which initially dragged on Microsoft's shares in after-hours trade. But the shares reversed course following the outlook, trading 3% above the closing price.

Investors were seeking assurances that the enterprise cloud business is still growing strongly and got it from Microsoft.

Thill said Microsoft's guidance that Azure revenue would be up sequentially was strong assurance that cloud demand was solid.

Microsoft forecast Intelligent Cloud revenue of US$18.75 billion-US$19 billion for its fiscal third quarter, driven by "strong growth" in its Azure platform. That compared with a Wall Street consensus of US$18.15 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Thill said the strong momentum for cloud computing benefiting Microsoft will likely also be reflected in upcoming results for rivals Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google. -Reuters

Texas forecasts upbeat revenue

Texas Instruments Inc on Tuesday forecast current-quarter revenue above expectations and said it would sharpen its focus on chips used in the lucrative automotive and industrial sectors, sending its shares up 4% in extended trading.

The company, which also beat fourth-quarter revenue estimates, is boosting capacity as chipmakers try to plug the gap between demand and supply caused by the pandemic-fuelled supply delays and a shift to working and learning from home.

Texas Instruments now plans to bank on opportunities and place "additional strategic emphasis" on the industrial and automotive segments, which roughly account for 41% and 21% of the company's annual revenue.

"It's very easily seen in the automotive market that there's content growth. We can see the cars today just have more semi content in them per vehicle than what we drove 5 years ago and 10 years ago.

And it's very clear that that's going to continue," TI's head of investor relations David Pahl said in a call with analysts. -Reuters

Google expands in Brazil

Alphabet Inc's Google is slated to hire 200 engineers in Brazil this year, as it seeks to bolster its privacy, security, and anti-abusive content technologies, Berthier Ribeiro-Neto, its director of engineering for Latin America, told Reuters on Tuesday.

The 2023 hiring push would double the current number of engineers working in Latin America's largest country with a focus on "local talents" that could create products not only for Brazil, but for the world.

The job offers will be focused on the south-eastern states of Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo, the country's tech hubs, but with the possibility of remote work.

Answering questions from Reuters via e-mail, Ribeiro-Neto also highlighted that the planned hires are part of a global expansion plan prioritizing Google's main markets outside the United States.

"With such a relevant market, we believe it is important to have more and more Brazilians at the forefront of the development of our technologies," he said, adding that Brazil is among the top five countries for the use of products such as Android, Chrome, YouTube and Maps. -Reuters

Airbus to create own airline

Airbus plans to charter out its whale-shaped Beluga transport planes -whose main job until now has been to ferry aircraft parts between its plants in Europe - to help other industries haul urgently-needed outsized machinery by air.

Airbus said the move to rent out spare capacity on its existing Beluga ST and new Beluga XL transporters would lead to the creation of a commercial-cargo airline subsidiary from 2023.

Weeks after ending output of the world's largest passenger jet, the A380, Airbus is planning a new role for what could be the West's largest commercial freighter by volume, the Beluga.

It is a rare example of aerospace 'in-sourcing' tasks from other industries after years of farming out work externally, and if successful could pave the way for other services. The 100% unit will work a commercial basis, Airbus said.

"It will get its revenues from its sales, and it will bear all its investments and operating costs," a spokesman said. -Reuters

GM's investment intensifies EV battle

General Motors Co said Tuesday it will invest US$7 billion in Michigan, much of that aimed at dramatically boosting production of full-size electric pickups, intensifying a battle with rival Ford Motor Co for EV supremacy in North America.

Both US automakers, however, will have to contend with current leader Tesla, which will soon open a second US plant in Austin, Texas, and is on pace to sell more than 1 million electric vehicles globally in 2022.

GM said its Detroit-Hamtramck and Orion Township plants will be able to build more than 600 000 electric trucks a year by late 2024, with three other plants in Tennessee, Ontario and Mexico boosting the company's total North America EV production capacity to more than a million units by late 2025.

In January, Ford said it will have the annual capacity to build 600 000 electric vehicles, including 150,000 F-150 Lightning pickups, within 24 months, when it aims to become "the clear No. 2 electric vehicle maker in North America" behind Tesla.

Last year, Ford said it would invest more than US$11 billion in new electric truck and battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky, along with Korean partner SK Innovation. -Reuters