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Samsung announces major global plans
Seoul: Samsung Electronics wants to become one of the top three global electronics makers by 2010. This was one amongst other mid-to long-term plans announced, by vice chairman Yun Jong-yong, at an event for some 300 local and foreign investors and analysts in Seoul on Wednesday.

The company said that to achieve the goal, it will raise its annual sales to more than W115 trillion (US$115bn) by 2010.

The Korean electronics giant is betting on eight growth engines, memory chips, displays, mobile communication and digital TVs, where it is a world leader and four other products, viz., printers, system LSI, high-capacity memory chips and air-conditioners, to propel its growth.

Another critical target for the company, as per technology vice chairman Lee Yoon-woo, is to become one of the world's top three patent holders by 2007. Samsung Electronics now ranks sixth with 1,604 patents and will increase the proportion of staff in research and development internationally from 24 percent last year to 32 percent by 2010.

The company's semiconductor chief Hwang Chang-kyu said the company will build the world's largest semiconductor complex in Korea by 2012 with 24 semiconductor production lines and six research centers. It hopes the complex will ensure annual revenue of US$61bn by 2012.
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Time Warner confirms talks are on for AOL sale
New York: Time Warner, the world's largest media company, ended weeks of speculation by confirming it was in talks with various parties over the sale of its struggling internet arm, America Online.

Dick Parsons, the chief executive of the sprawling media group, said there were "exploratory discussions" with a number of parties about buying all or part of AOL. The parties likely to be in talks with the media conglomerate, may include internet companies such as Google and Yahoo!, the cable giant Comcast and Microsoft.

Parsons public confirmation of a possible deal is a reversal from Time Warner's earlier position that it wanted to retain its Internet business at a time when its business model was being changed.

AOL is being transformed from an old-style service to access the Internet into a portal offering music and news. Subscribers are no longer interested in sites offering only Internet access, and advertisers are far keener to place ads with portals, which are enjoying rapidly rising Internet traffic.

Time Warner reported an 80 per cent surge in third-quarter profits to US$897mn, boosted by a strong performance at HBO and its other television networks.

Time Warner also said it would more than double its share buy-back to US$12.5bn of stock, after intense pressure from the billionaire investor Carl Icahn. He was pressing for a US$20bn repurchase scheme to revive Time Warner's flagging share price.
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Deutsche Tele to lay off 32,000
London: Deutsche Telekom will lay off 32,000 staff over the next three years as part of a euro 3.3bn restructuring programme. The majority of the job cuts at the German telecommunications group will be at its fixed-line business.

The group said 7,000 of the 32,000 job reductions would be staff permanently outsourced from Vivento, a personnel services agency set up by Deutsche Telekom to offload surplus staff. Another 6,000 new jobs would also be created during that time, resulting in a net loss of 19,000 jobs.
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Merck scores in Vioxx case
New Jersey, USA: Merck & Co. won a major victory in the battle over its Vioxx painkiller Thursday on the finding by a New Jersey state jury that the drugmaker had properly warned consumers about the risks of the medication. Hence Merck is likely to not be held liable for the heart attack suffered by a man taking Vioxx in 2001.

The jury cleared Merck of allegations that it failed to warn consumers about the drug's risks and engaged in "unconscionable commercial practices" in marketing it to doctors and their patients.

Out of the two Vioxx-related trials this is the first time Merck has received a favourable verdict. In August, a Texas jury found the company liable in a Vioxx user's death. Damages there will be cut to about one-tenth of the jury's $253 million award due to that state's caps on punitive damages.

The company faces more than 6,500 similar lawsuits. Merck has said it plans to fight the product liability suits one by one.
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Toyota and Honda displace GM and Ford to lead in US auto market
New York: General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Co have seen plunging sales in the US market in October while Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co on the back of new car models, won a record share of the US market last month.

Toyota and Honda raised the combined market share for Japanese and South Korean automakers to 40 per cent, up from 35.9 percent a year earlier, while the combined US share of GM, Ford and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler fell to a historic low of 52.4 per cent.

Toyota and Honda have sparked sales with Toyota's redesigned Avalon sedan and Honda's Civic compact, which offer superior fuel economy. Sales increased 1.3 per cent for Toyota Motor and 0.4 per cent for Honda Motor, Japan's No. 3 carmaker.

US consumers rate Honda and Toyota as having the highest average fuel economy among the market's six largest automakers.

Passenger cars like Camry and Corolla account for 59 per cent of Toyota's US October vehicle sales, while sales of light trucks was at 41 per cent. The ratio for Honda was at 57 per cent and 43 per cent. GM's passenger cars sales accounted for 45 per cent and 33 percent for Ford last month.
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