Scorecard: Boeing, Canon, Roche, UPS
Boeing, the world’s second-biggest commercial-airplane maker, said fourth-quarter earnings rose 4.5% as the company boosted production to deliver nine more jetliners than a year earlier.
By Agencies |
Deliveries boost Boeing’s Q4
SEATTLE: Boeing, the world’s second-biggest commercial-airplane maker, said fourth-quarter earnings rose 4.5% as the company boosted production to deliver nine more jetliners than a year earlier. The company raised its 2008 profit outlook.
Net income increased to $1.03 billion, or $1.36 a share, from $989 million, or $1.29, a year earlier. Sales were little changed at $17.5 billion, the Chicago-based company said on Wednesday in a statement. The company raised its 2008 profit forecast to as much as $5.85 a share from $5.75.
Boeing raised commercial deliveries 8.7% to 112 in the quarter and to 441 for the full year, a dozen planes behind rival Airbus and the most since terrorists struck US airlines in 2001. Commercial and military orders are being fuelled by demand from airlines and governments in Asia and the Middle East. The deliveries and backlog are helping Boeing until its twice-delayed 787 Dreamliner arrives in early 2009.
“Airlines have to reinvest in their fleets with the high-cost fuel environment we’re in, and international carriers are growing fast,” Matthew Spahn, an analyst at TCW Group in New York, which owns about 1.4 million shares, said before the results. “Airlines are healthy and generating cash for the first time in a long time. Boeing has the models they need.”
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Chief executive officer James McNerney ramped up assembly lines this year as he works through a record backlog of more than $200 billion in orders. Boeing has forecast deliveries to rise to as many as 520 planes this year, even with delays that have pushed back the first shipment of the 787 Dreamliner by at least eight months into next year.Canon hit by US slowdown
TOKYO: Canon blamed a slowing US economy that cut camera and office gear sales for a surprise drop in quarterly operating profit on Wednesday, and warned that earnings this year will miss market expectations.
The company saw healthy demand for its EOS high-end digital cameras and IXY compact models last year, but slowing consumer spending, a key market for its cameras and office equipment, has cast a shadow over its earnings prospects. “The subprime loan problems have turned out to be worse than we had anticipated,” Canon MD Masahiro Osawa said.
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Canon, the world’s largest digital camera maker, said group operating profit totalled 193.58 billion yen in October-December, down 1.2% from 195.87 billion yen a year earlier.Roche profit rises 25%
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BASEL: Roche Holding beat forecasts with a 25% rise in 2007 net profit but gave a cautious outlook, saying it would spend more in research this year as it accelerated drug development. Europe’s largest drugmaker by market value posted a net profit of 11.4 billion Swiss francs on Wednesday, boosted by strong sales of cancer drugs Avastin and MabThera. A world-leading cancer portfolio and limited patent exposures have helped Roche avoid problems that beset competitors.UPS posts $2.58-b loss
ATLANTA: United Parcel Service, the world’s largest package-delivery company, reported a $2.58 billion loss for the fourth quarter on costs to exit a pension plan. The net loss was $2.46 a share, the Atlanta-based company said on Wednesday in a statement.
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