Intel also halted or scrapped several fab projects in the U.S. and Europe, citing financial discipline

International News via Reuters:

Intel shares fell 5% in premarket trading on Friday after the chipmaker forecast steeper-than-expected quarterly losses and warned of a potential exit from its foundry business despite new CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s turnaround plans.

Tan on Thursday hinted at departing from ex-CEO Pat Gelsinger’s core strategy, warning that without demand-backed investment, Intel risks exiting the foundry business, jeopardizing $100 billion in assets and increasing its reliance on TSMC.

As part of its foundry business reform, the company may reserve the advanced 18A manufacturing process for its products and proceed with 14A only if a major external partner commits, Tan stated in a post-conference call.

“Intel Foundry is a big story, and currently people are questioning how successful 18A is. A failure in 18A would be a broken story,” said Hendi Susanto, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds.

Intel also halted or scrapped several fab projects in the U.S. and Europe, citing financial discipline.

Once a leader in American chipmaking, Intel has lost ground after years of strategic missteps, lagging far behind rivals Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

The company’s stock has gained 12.8% so far this year, while Nvidia and AMD have jumped about 30% and 34%, respectively.

Since taking the helm in March, Tan has divested businesses, laid off employees and redirected resources as part of his strategic reset to revive the embattled chipmaker.

“There are no more blank checks,” Tan wrote in a memo to employees on Thursday, announcing further job cuts as Intel aims to reduce its workforce by 22% to 75,000 by year-end.

“I don’t think he’s scaling back… I think they’re maybe redirecting. I would prefer them to build it out, but only if they have customer commitments,” said Ryuta Makino, analyst at Gabelli Funds, who’s also an Intel shareholder.

Intel trades at a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 42.55 versus 33.90 for Nvidia and 32.12 for AMD.

Reporting by Rashika Singh and Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru, Samuel Indyk in London; Editing by Amanda Cooper and Vijay Kishore

In June, a Dutch court confirmed the watchdog’s ruling saying that Apple had abused its dominant position by imposing unfair conditions on providers of dating apps

International News via Reuters:

Dutch antitrust regulator ACM said in a statement on Friday it has postponed a ruling on Apple over fees the iPhone maker charges dating app providers as it awaits the outcome of ongoing discussions between Apple and the European Commission over a similar issue.

It added that Apple recently adjusted its rates in light of these discussions and the U.S. firm has announced that it will make further adjustments later this year.

In June, a Dutch court confirmed the watchdog’s ruling saying that Apple had abused its dominant position by imposing unfair conditions on providers of dating apps in the App Store.

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee and GV De Clercq

Broadcom had wrapped up the purchase of VMWare in November 2023

International News via Reuters:

European Union judges could review chipmaker Broadcom’s $69 billion acquisition of cloud computing firm VMWare, after an antitrust complaint opposed the bloc’s approval of one of the biggest takeovers in the technology industry.

The Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe, or CISPE, has filed a formal appeal before the European General Court seeking an annulment of the European Commission’s approval of the deal, the organisation said on Thursday.

Broadcom had wrapped up the purchase of VMWare in November 2023, after intense scrutiny from regulators globally forced the company to delay the closing date thrice.

The European Commission’s official summary of its approval decision was published in May, acknowledging that the acquisition posed significant risks to competition.

“However, it failed to impose any conditions on Broadcom to prevent a concentration of dominance or to mitigate the potential abuse of such a position,” CISPE said.

CISPE said it has “consistently raised alarms” with the Commission over Broadcom’s unfair software licensing practices, but no substantive action has been taken to support either European cloud service providers or their customers.

VMware’s dominance of software in the virtualisation market “means that unfair new licensing terms enforced by Broadcom affect almost every European organisation using cloud technology”, said Francisco Mingorance, Secretary General of CISPE.

A spokesperson for the European Commission said it is ready to defend its decisions in court.

“Broadcom strongly disagrees with these allegations,” a company spokesperson said, adding that the deal was approved after a “thorough merger review process, and we will uphold the commitments made to the Commission at that time.”

The deal, one of the biggest globally when announced in May 2022, was part of Broadcom CEO Hock Tan’s efforts to boost the chipmaker’s software business.

Reporting by Juby Babu in Mexico City, Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru and Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Devika Syamnath

The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) sets out a list of dos and don’ts for seven Big Tech companies including Alphabet unit Google

International News via Reuters:

Alphabet was targeted with an EU antitrust complaint from six human and digital rights groups on Thursday which urged EU regulators to investigate whether the tech giant complies with legislation requiring it to make it easier for users to uninstall software apps.

The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which took effect two years ago, sets out a list of dos and don’ts for seven Big Tech companies including Alphabet unit Google, in an attempt to curb their power and give rivals more room and users more choice.

British human rights organisation ARTICLE 19, European Digital Rights (EDRi), Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), Gesellschaft fur Freiheitsrechte (GFF), Homo Digitalis, and Vrijschrift.org. said Alphabet allegedly has not complied with the DMA.

They said the alleged violation concerned a DMA requirement that gatekeepers or companies which provide a core platform service to business users, shall technically enable users to easily uninstall software applications on the gatekeeper’s operating system.

“Alphabet has designed its Core Platform Service Android in a way to hide from end users the possibility to disable its own pre-installed gatekeeper apps,” they said in their complaint.

“What is more, Alphabet goes to great length to scare away end users who have found that possibility against all odds of actually disabling Google’s pre-installed apps,” they said.

The group called on the European Commission to investigate the issue.

Alphabet refuted the allegations.

“It is easy to uninstall apps on Android devices, so this complaint does not represent a genuine user concern. Other regulators, including the CMA, have previously dismissed this complaint,” a Google spokesperson said.

The CMA is the British competition watchdog.

The Commission confirmed receipt of the complaint, saying it is currently assessing it under its standard procedures.

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Susan Fenton