(Bloomberg) -- Tencent Holdings Ltd. reported better-than-expected sales after pandemic-induced lockdowns helped spur growth in its suite of online offerings from gaming to social media.The WeChat operator’s revenue rose 26% to 108.1 billion yuan ($15.2 billion) after gaming sales rose at their fastest pace since 2017 during the coronavirus-stricken March quarter. That compared with the average estimate of 101.07 billion yuan. Net income rose 6% to 28.9 billion yuan from a year earlier, when Tencent booked an 11 billion yuan one-time gain on investments.Tencent, which never offers precise financial guidance, warned that the boost to its gaming business from Covid-19 could be short-lived, while marketing budgets remain stretched. “We expect in-game consumption activities to largely normalise as people return to work, and we see some headwinds for the online advertising industry,” the company said in its filing.Shares in Prosus NV, the entity controlled by major shareholder Naspers Ltd. that serves as...
Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ: MRNA) Chief Executive Officer Stephane Bancel on Tuesday told CNBC he is hoping for approval of multiple vaccines against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).What Happened Bancel said that any single company, including Moderna, can't produce enough vaccines to meet the global demand."The odds that every program works are really low, obviously, but I really hope we have three, four, five vaccines, because no manufacturer can make enough doses for the planet," Bancel said at the CNBC Healthy Returns Virtual Summit.Moderna's mRNA-1273 vaccine for COVID-19 received a Fast Track designation from the Food and Drug Administration earlier in the day that allows for the process of regulatory review to be accelerated.The company also received approval from the FDA to start phase two clinical trials last week.Its vaccine candidate is the only one to be in the second phase of clinical trials, along with China's CanSino Biologics Inc, according to data...
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Less than three years after Wisconsin won a beauty contest to lure Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group to the state, local leaders and voters have been left with buyers remorse. Founder Terry Gou’s stated plans to build a $10 billion plant making flat screens were illogical from the start, and taxpayers there now realize it.There’s another Taiwanese company that might be looking for a new American foothold. And this time, such a project makes complete sense.Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is the world’s most important chip company. It makes high-end components using the best technology for clients including Apple Inc., Qualcomm Inc., Nvidia Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Yet it produces the bulk of its chips at three locations in Taiwan with additional capacity in China. TSMC has barely any footprint in America, owning one old factory in Washington state which it bought 20 years ago.U.S. national security concerns, protectionis, and a growing need to diversify have...
(Bloomberg) -- Get ready for the New Normal 2.0 -- or, more appropriately, 2-point awful.The U.S. economy post-Covid-19 will look a lot like the one that struggled to recover from the 2008-09 financial crisis –- only in some ways worse.Growth will be disappointingly tepid after an initial rebound and, for a time at least, inflation dangerously lower and unemployment heartbreakingly higher than they were back then. Government debt -– and the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet -– will be much bigger, while interest rates stay low.“Our economy will have lost something of value,” said Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. “We will be scarred, and the recovery will be slow.”The New Normal 2.0 will be a just-in-case economy of diminished demand and paltry productivity as consumers and companies emerge from this crisis gingerly and build buffers against the next.Households worried about their health and finances will save more and spend less. Companies will...
Pharma giant Pfizer (PFE) wants to expand human trials of its experimental coronavirus vaccine to thousands of test patients by September, CEO and Chairman Albert Bourla told CNBC on Tuesday.On May 5, Pfizer and BioNTech SE (BNTX) announced that the first participants have been dosed in the U.S. in the Phase 1/2 clinical trial for the BNT162 vaccine program to prevent Covid-19.The first stage of the Phase 1/2 trial in the U.S. will enroll up to 360 healthy subjects in two age groups (18-55 and 65-85), with the younger group to receive the vaccine candidate first. The trial is part of a global development program, and the dosing of the first cohort in Germany was completed the previous week.Pfizer and BioNTech’s development program includes four vaccine candidates, each representing a different combination of mRNA format and target antigen.“We are collecting data as we speak in real time so we know, we are monitoring...
