The South Korean tech giant recorded 230.4 trillion won ($194.85 billion) in sales last year, down 5.48 percent from a year earlier, while obtaining 27.7 trillion won in operating profit. The total net profit stood at 21.7 trillion won, down 50.98 percent.

The company’s most lucrative business unit, chipmaking, brought in a total of 14 trillion won for the whole year, accounting for 51.8 percent of its total operating profit. That figure had plunged from around 80 percent over the past two to three years.

The company’s mobile business division earned 9.27 trillion won in total. The consumer electronics division brought in 2.61 trillion won, the data showed.

In the final quarter of 2019, Samsung posted 59.88 trillion won in sales and 7.16 trillion won in operating profit, a slight improvement from the previous quarter.

Samsung said in a statement that its fourth quarter profit had dropped 33.7 percent compared with the same period in 2018 due to the continued fall in memory chip prices and weakness in display panels.

But improving demand for memory in servers and mobile products, as well as solid sales of flagship smartphones, mitigated the decline in its overall earnings, according to the company.

Of the 7.16 trillion won Q4 profit, the semiconductor division accounted for 3.45 trillion won, the mobile business division 2.52 trillion won and the consumer electronics division 0.81 trillion won.

By Song Su-hyun (song@heraldcorp.com)

Nordstrom said it will begin selling secondhand apparel online and in its New York flagship store, the latest attempt by the 119-year-old company to appeal to changing consumer tastes and capitalize on one of the few bright spots in retail. It joins Macy’s, JCPenney, Madewell and others in carving out a place for used clothing, shoes and handbags alongside new ones.

Resale sites such as ThredUp, Poshmark and The RealReal have gained ground in recent years as eco-friendly alternatives to fast fashion. And as the trend becomes more mainstream, clothing is making its way from the back of closets onto store shelves.

“We want our customers to feel good not only about what they’re buying but how they’re buying it,” said Olivia Kim, Nordstrom’s vice president of creative projects. She said the new initiative, See You Tomorrow, will be formally announced Thursday.

Starting Friday, racks of secondhand clothing will fill a space formerly occupied by Burberry in the company’s Manhattan store. Nordstrom will also begin allowing customers to drop off used clothing, handbags, shoes, jewelry and watches there in exchange for gift cards. Those items will be cleaned and repaired as necessary before being resold. Nordstrom said it will soon begin accepting merchandise by mail as well.

Macy’s and JCPenney have partnered with online reseller ThredUp to offer secondhand items in department stores across the country, while Madewell is offering used pairs of its jeans for $50 a pop. Neiman Marcus, meanwhile, has begun buying back “preloved” handbags. Even the Kardashian-Jenner family has gotten into the game, with the launch of Kardashian Kloset, where they offload Max Mara jumpsuits, Valentino handbags and other designer apparel.

“Through extensive research over many months, we know consumers appreciate new brands,” said Michelle Wlazlo, JCPenney’s chief merchandising officer. “The customer demand for secondhand is strong.”

The resale market, currently valued at about $7 billion, is expected to triple by 2023, according to a report prepared for ThredUp by the research firm GlobalData. The company says 56 million women bought secondhand items in 2018, up from 44 million a year earlier.

ThredUp, founded in 2009, has processed more than 100 million pieces of clothing in the past decade, according to its president, Anthony Marino. The site’s most loyal shoppers, he said, range from teenagers to 40-somethings.

“Whether you’re shopping at Target or Walmart or Nordstrom or Macy’s, customers are saying we’d love to see secondhand products here because we’re buying it anyway,” he said. “Retailers are realizing that the person who buys secondhand clothing is not somebody else’s customer – it’s their customer.”

Hundreds of secondhand items were on display at a Macy’s store in downtown Washington on a recent morning. The ThredUp section – nestled in the women’s department between Guess Jeans and Anne Klein – was filled with items commonly found in America’s shopping malls: a J. Crew shirt dress (marked $34.99), an American Eagle sweater ($11.99) and silver Victoria’s Secret bag ($24.99).

Analysts said those items are illustrative of modern retail, where fast fashion and faster-changing consumer tastes have led to an endless churn of flimsy clothing. But taken together, Macy’s says they represent a growing opportunity. The company now sells used clothing and handbags at 40 of its 630 Macy’s stores.

But not all consumers think it’s a good idea – and analysts say department stores such as Macy’s and JCPenney could risk alienating loyal shoppers. Kimberly Ross, 57, who lives Baton Rouge, Louisiana, says she was perplexed when secondhand handbags began popping up at her local Dillard’s store a few years ago. Though she sometimes sells items to consignment stores, she says selling used items alongside new ones tarnishes the reputation of the retailer.

“Bottom line for me is that used merchandise does not belong in a department store,” she said. “I’m not wealthy, but when I decide to treat myself to an overpriced designer bag, I want it to be brand new.”

Others, though, said combining new with used is long overdue. After all, car dealers have been doing it for years.

“It’s not a zero-sum game,” said Tony Drockton, whose line of Hammitt handbags are often sold alongside used designer bags at Dillard’s and Von Maur department stores. “I own plenty of different brands of jeans and jackets and shirts and shoes. The smart consumer wants a nice assortment of new and secondhand.”

Monica Ricci says she buys almost everything secondhand. She scours thrift stores, yard sales and a growing crop of online shops such as Tradesy, Poshmark and ThreadUp for gently used items in search of a new home.

It saves money, the 54-year-old says – and more importantly, keeps clothing out of landfills.

“There is such glut of cheap, disposable fashion out there,” she said. “The last thing I want to do is contribute more waste.”

In a set of commonly agreed guidelines on how to mitigate risks stemming from the roll-out of next generation telecoms networks, the EU said companies based in non-democratic countries could be excluded from the procurement of certain core components, following assessments by security agencies.

But despite intense U.S. lobbying, the so-called toolbox of measures released Wednesday doesn’t recommend a preemptive blanket ban of Chinese equipment, a decision that follows the U.K. on Tuesday allowing Huawei components into non-core networks. EU member states have until April 30 to implement the mitigating measures included in the toolbox.

The EU’s position reflects a balancing act between concerns about the risk of Chinese espionage and the bloc’s reluctance to pick a fight with its second-biggest trading partner, which has been increasingly infiltrating the continent with large-scale investment projects over the past decade. The fudge is an effort to navigate between Beijing’s warnings of repercussions if companies like Huawei were banned, and U.S. threats of sanctions, such as cuts in intelligence sharing, if Chinese equipment is used.

The policy document urges EU member states to apply ad hoc restrictions on merit for certain suppliers of key 5G components, including core, network management, access network, and orchestration functions. The assessment criteria, already published in December, include “a strong link between the supplier and a government,” and the lack of “legislative or democratic checks and balances” in the home-country of the company.

While these guidelines may encourage some governments to restrict the participation of Huawei and other Chinese companies in parts of their next-generation broadband, they also leave room for interpretation and don’t call for a de facto ban. Decisions are left to individual member states, as the EU doesn’t have the competence to regulate centrally in this area.

The proposals also include bolstering the role of national authorities, audits of telecom operators and measures to ensure diversity of suppliers for any single telecommunications company. In addition, the EU proposes stricter screening of foreign direct investment in the area of 5G and possible anti-dumping duties and other penalties for companies benefiting from state subsidies.

“Today we are equipping EU Member States, telecoms operators and users with the tools to build and protect a European infrastructure with the highest security standards so we all fully benefit from the potential that 5G has to offer,” EU Commissioner in charge of the bloc’s internal market rules, Thierry Breton, said in a statement.

An EU diplomat said the bloc’s countries can also use other legislation, such as rules for procurement in the areas of defense and security, to further limit the use of Huawei’s equipment. The bloc is also preparing beefed up rules that would raise the price of bids placed in Europe by companies based in countries with protectionist procurement legislation, such as China.

Still, the overall stance, first reported by Bloomberg News on Jan. 22, may come as another blow to the U.S. a day after the U.K. risked a rift with President Trump by giving Huawei the green light to help develop Britain’s 5G networks. U.S. officials expressed regret at the decision even though the U.K. announced it would keep high-risk vendors out of the most sensitive core parts of its networks.

U.S. officials have long urged European governments to exclude Huawei from all sections — core and non-core — of their networks, arguing it threatens their national security. The EU partly shares these concerns, as 5G will connect everything to networks, making societies more susceptible to sabotage and espionage.

In a review published in October, the bloc warned against a nightmare scenario whereby hackers or hostile states assume control of everything from electricity grids to police communications and even home appliances.

Huawei and Chinese officials have repeatedly denied the company poses a spying risk.

Fourth-quarter earnings excluding one-time items were 89 cents a share. Analysts had predicted 87 cents, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg. The company, which operates DirecTV, the largest U.S. TV service, lost 1.2 million subscribers, more than the 782,000 decline analysts expected, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The record annual loss of 4.1 million U.S. TV subscribers that AT&T reported for last year highlights the challenge facing the company as cord cutters switch to streaming services like Netflix Inc. and Hulu. AT&T has also tried to widen margins in its entertainment business by eliminating discounts, further accelerating the exodus.

HBO Max, launching in May, will be a primary focus for AT&T as it tries to bolster its appeal to its whole universe of customers. Revenue for the existing HBO premium service rose 1.9% on gains in digital customers, but it’s an open question whether millions of people will want to subscribe to HBO Max for the same $15 monthly cost, even with expanded content.

The company raised a net $18 billion last year through moves like selling real estate and tower rent payments, helping it pay down debt and lower its leverage ratio as it had promised investors such as activist Elliott Management Corp. AT&T expects to sell a further $5 billion to $10 billion in assets this year.

AT&T shares fell 3.4% to $37.28 in New York trading at 12:01 p.m. The stock was up 37% in 2019, outpacing the 9% gain by peer Verizon Communications Inc. and topping the 29% increase in the S&P 500 Index.

The fund is reviewing 27 miners that earn at least 10% of revenue from mining thermal coal that’s burned by power plants to produce electricity, either directly for industries or to supply power grids. The companies under review include Peabody Energy, Anglo American and Coal India.

“We are assessing minimum standards for transition readiness at coal mining companies first, because they face the greatest risk as the world turns to cleaner and renewable energies,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement Wednesday.

The review is part of DiNapoli’s Climate Action Plan, which seeks to cut the carbon footprint of the pension plan’s investments. DiNapoli has asked the miners for relevant information, and the companies have until mid-February to respond. The review process will take several months to finish, the pension plan said.

The New York pension fund managed about $210 billion as of the end of March 2019, and its investments in the 27 coal miners are worth about $98 million, according to spokesman Matt Sweeney.

The standards being assessed include companies’ measures to align their business models with the Paris Agreement’s emissions goals, reducing capital expenditures on coal and setting long-term targets to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

The pension fund said it may divest from miners that fail the state plan’s assessment and are unable to show their readiness to transition to a low-carbon economy.

State Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat who has sponsored legislation to push the New York pension fund to divest its fossil fuel investments, described its moves as “incremental.”

“I continue to urge the Comptroller to reach the logical conclusion of today’s announcement, and move swiftly to fully divest the pension fund from all oil, gas, and coal producers,” she said in a statement.

Google has to prompt users to pick alternative search and web browser apps under the terms of a 2018 EU antitrust ruling that found the company unfairly ties moneymaking services to the Android software it gives away.

It chose to set up an auction format for smaller rivals where they will pay to appear as a one of three non-Google options on the choice screen across Europe from March to June.

But the user experience of the screens “is designed in a way that is subconsciously influencing people to use Google more than they otherwise should or would like to,” Gabriel Weinberg, chief executive officer of DuckDuckGo, a U.S. search engine that says it doesn’t track users, said in a phone interview.

“Ultimately it will not be effective if it remains like that, if only because the auction format will push out a private option and that is the number one thing besides Google that people want to select,” he said.

The auction will be re-run every three months. DuckDuckGo and Google are the only search apps that will appear on the choice screens in 31 countries in the region.

Users trying to set up their phones will be shown a choice of four search engines, without much explanation of the apps or the possibility to change their choice later, DuckDuckGo said in a separate blog post on Tuesday.

By passing up other ways of designing the prompts that could draw users to non-Google options, DuckDuckGo said Google is potentially undermining the EU order’s aim to widen alternatives to its apps.

Google declined to comment, referring to a detailed January blog post where it said the “choice screen design was developed in consultation with the European Commission.”

The commission’s press office said regulators “will continue monitoring closely the implementation of the choice screen mechanism” which comes after discussions with Google and feedback from other companies “in particular in relation to the presentation and mechanics of the choice screen and to the selection mechanism of rival search providers.”

“As regards DuckDuckGo, as a result of the choice screen mechanism, they will be on every new Android device in the European Economic Area, and it will be for consumers to choose which search engine to install and use,” the EU said in an emailed statement. The EU’s Android decision also allows rival search engines to be exclusively pre-installed on phone and tablets which “was not possible before.”

Google said it was possible to pre-install other search providers prior to the EU ruling. The company is separately challenging the EU decision on Android at the bloc’s second-highest court. The same court will hold a three-day hearing in February on Google’s appeal to an earlier antitrust decision on its search service.

Weinberg said DuckDuckGo has discussed its concerns with the European Commission.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, told reporters on Monday that she’s “very very closely” following Google’s efforts to comply with the order. She said she’s aware of the detail of the design, adding that officials were “doubting if people would use unlimited scroll” to show a large number of alternatives.

Prices rivals must pay Google to appear on the screen “came down quite dramatically in the latest auction,” she said.

The EU has never formally signed off on how Google opted to comply with the order, leaving it uncertain whether the company has done enough to avoid more fines. Regulators could seek further changes to the choice screen from Google if necessary.

Google’s Chrome browser partly owes its own initial surge in popularity to choice screens that Microsoft Corp. agreed to show under EU pressure to offer people an alternative to the browser it loaded on to new personal computers with its Windows software.

Microsoft’s screen “wasn’t limited in choice and had 12 different browsers” and “most or all of the elements that we are suggesting here,” Weinberg said.

Boeing closed out the fourth quarter with $17.9 billion in revenue, the company announced Wednesday, a 37% decline from the fourth quarter of 2018.

The company’s 2019 net losses of $636 million mark its first annual loss since 1997.

The losses stem from the continued worldwide grounding of Boeing’s Max jets and a production halt this year in the wake of two fatal crashes. On Wednesday, the company incurred another $2.6 billion in costs related to the indefinite grounding, and it expects the grounding to cost it an estimated $4 billion throughout 2020, something that should put a drag on future results.

The company’s stock price has lost about 13% of its value over the past year at a time when the market has surged.

“We recognize we have a lot of work to do,” Boeing President and CEO David Calhoun said in a statement. “We are focused on returning the 737 MAX to service safely and restoring the long-standing trust that the Boeing brand represents with the flying public.”

Once a cash-generating machine that was the envy of its competitors and a darling of Wall Street, Boeing has been forced to borrow billions of dollars to cover the cost of building airplanes it can’t deliver to customers. (CNBC reported Monday that Boeing has secured more than $12 billion in loans from banks to provide cash for operations over the next two years.)

Boeing has been forced to compensate airlines for the cost of flight cancellations, taking a $5.6 billion charge in July. And a bruising congressional inquiry has pointed to deeper problems with the company’s management culture, leading to the ouster of its two highest-ranking executives.

The 737 Max has been out of commission for more than 10 months as regulators remain unconvinced it is safe to fly. It was grounded in mid-March when the Federal Aviation Administration recognized similarities in a pair of deadly plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, both of them involving new 737 Max jets, that killed 346 people.

Boeing later admitted that a new flight-control program, interacting with bad data from the planes’ external sensors, had in both cases pushed the jets into an uncontrollable nosedive.

The FAA has made the jets’ return to the sky contingent on a set of software and display changes designed to prevent the same problems from occurring again. But the timeline for approval has continually shifted over the past year as regulators discovered more problems with the plane.

Throughout most of 2019, Boeing continued churning out new planes under the assumption regulations would soon clear them to fly. However, in December, the company announced it would indefinitely halt production of the embattled jets.

That production halt has rippled throughout the company’s supply chain, resulting in about 2,800 layoffs at Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas. About half of Spirit’s revenue comes from supplying parts to the Max.

In addition to scrutiny over the Max jets, the company has faced wider criticism about its culture.

Internal messages between Boeing employees were recently disclosed to congressional investigators. The messages, made public last month as part of a long-running investigation into how the Max was designed and certified, could further damage the company’s relationship with regulators and the flying public.

One Boeing employee said in 2018, “I still haven’t been forgiven by god for the covering up I did last year.” Another said, “This is what these regulators get when they try and get in the way.” And in 2017, long before either of the crashes, a Boeing employee wrote, “This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”

The crisis has raised questions about whether Boeing’s top management understands the company’s own production lines, analysts said. The Chicago-based corporate office has come under criticism for being too focused on Wall Street, at the expense of the company’s Seattle-based production lines.

Calhoun will be under intense pressure to navigate the company back to financial health.

“Chicago has been a distant asset manager that’s there to extract cash. That needs to change,” said Richard Aboulafia, a longtime aerospace analyst with Teal Group.

Aboulafia attributed Boeing’s broader problems to a “combination of bad communication and very aggressive wage and conditions pressure in the midst of unprecedented prosperity,” calling it a “mixture for a toxic soup.”

Calhoun visited with workers at Boeing’s Seattle production facilities last week and held an all-hands meeting with employees, during which he pledged to be more transparent about management’s decisions and to work to rebuild their confidence.

In his statement Wednesday, Calhoun said the company was prepared for the challenges ahead.

“We are committed to transparency and excellence in everything we do. Safety will underwrite every decision, every action and every step we take as we move forward. Fortunately, the strength of our overall Boeing portfolio of businesses provides the financial liquidity to follow a thorough and disciplined recovery process.”

The biggest U.S. bank intends to notify employees on Feb. 6 and cuts will be scattered across the division, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing personnel decisions. The retail unit, which houses the deposit, credit-card, home-loan and auto-lending businesses, contributes almost half of the firm’s revenue.

Banks around the world have cut thousands of jobs as they slash costs to weather a slowing economy and adapt to shifts in consumer behavior and in digital technology. At JPMorgan, the reductions are part of a broader review of operations as customers increasingly access banking services online or through mobile apps.

A JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to comment. The planned cuts represent about 1% of employees in the unit, and workers will be given the chance to apply for other roles in the firm, another person said.

Expense management has been an area of intense focus under co-President Gordon Smith, who leads the consumer bank. JPMorgan cut about 7,000 operations jobs from the unit in the four years through 2018, replacing some of them with roles for technologists, according to a presentation last February. Smith said at the time that reductions would continue and that “technology and digital and mobile people are building the company for the future.”

Headcount in the unit fell 2% to 127,137 at the end of last year, the lowest since 2015, according to the New York-basedbank’s latest quarterly report.

JPMorgan has poured billions of dollars into technology to make it easier for customers to access services without the help of traditional workers. More than 80% of transactions in the consumer bank were completed through so-called “self-service” channels in 2018, according to the presentation last year. The bank said in February it expects its technology investments from 2018 to generate more than $1 billion of annual run-rate savings for the retail unit over five years.

At the same time, JPMorgan has been opening up hundreds of branches in new states to attract customers and boost lending — even as its total count has slipped. Retail locations fell to less than 5,000 last year for the first time since before JPMorgan took over Washington Mutual Inc.’s banking operations during the height of the last financial crisis.

The latest moves are in line with a broader focus on cutting costs and managing risk across the firm amid a growing number of potential pitfalls in the economy.

JPMorgan has been shrinking its workforce in New York and building up its employee presence in lower-cost locations such as Plano, Texas; Columbus, Ohio; and Wilmington, Delaware. It’s also considering selling its investment-banking building at 383 Madison Ave. as part of a facilities review taking place while the bank constructs a new headquarters in Manhattan.

The company plans to hosts an investor day next month, when it’s expected to provide strategy details and its outlook for expenses and revenue for the year.

SME credit is expected to grow 1-3 per cent and corporate loans 2-4 per cent.

Non-interest income is expected to fall 5-17 per cent as a result of the new TFRS9 accounting standard, a high base effect of income earned from sales of securities, and a slowdown in the insurance business.

At the same time, the non-performing loan ratio is expected to rise to between 3.6 and 4 per cent amid the economic slowdown.

KBank has fine-tuned strategies for NPL management by keeping under its own management the portion that are expected to see a higher long-term recovery rate.

KBank president Kattiya Indaravijaya said the bank is using smart data to offer a personalised lending experience and achieve fair risk-adjusted returns.

It has also proactively identified potential risks and established loss prevention and detection.

The bank will continue to explore new growth opportunities in the region, she added.

Moreover, it has expanded its data analytics capability to enhance business opportunities and operational efficiency.

Kattiya said KBank equips all employees with essential skills to bolster their capabilities and agility.

President Predee Daochai said KBank has adopted a set of financial security measures to maintain financial health and customers’ deposits and investments. One of those measures is to steadily maintain its capital and liquidity at levels above the regulatory requirements.

Currently, KBank’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) is at 19.6 per cent, accounting for 171 per cent of the regulatory requirement, while its liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) is 188 per cent of the requirement.

The bank has carried out stress tests on economic scenarios and new regulations while devising and testing contingency plans for the supervision of its capital and liquidity on a regular basis.

It has also bolstered its capacities in data analytics and management to better understand its customers and their risks.

KBank has installed both transaction and application-fraud monitoring systems, as well as an internal fraud monitoring system, worth over Bt500 million. Its fraud-to-sales ratio has steadily improved.

This year KBank plans to give cybersecurity and customer data privacy top priority and use AI and machine learning to track cybercrime and cyber-risk.

President Patchara Samalapa said consumers have increasingly migrated to digital banking services, as evidenced by the number of transactions via its mobile application K Plus, which have risen by over 200 per cent in the past three years.

However, the number of transactions at branches remains high – topping 100 million.

KBank has thus focused mainly on multi-service channels so as to offer customers services via multiple channels and platforms, as client convenience holds the first priority.

To meet multiple lifestyle needs of customers, KBank has teamed with leading business partners at both the global and national levels.

These partners include Grab, Facebook, Line, Central JD FinTech, JD Central, PTTOR, the CU NEX project, Lazada and Shopee.

KBank has also collaborated with startups such as YouTech in Singapore. Based on the “Better Together” concept, these collaborative efforts aim to develop platforms that link spending formats in each business for a seamless customer experience.

Last year, KBank introduced unsecured loan via all channels. Focus is on online lending via K Plus and platforms of KBank’s business partners.

KBank joined with Line Financial Co Ltd last year to establish Kasikorn Line Co Ltd. The company will be fully operational under the Line BK brand in the second quarter of 2020, offering unsecured personal loan on K Plus, thus allowing K Plus users, both retail customers and small business owners, improved access to small-scale funding sources with greater convenience and swiftness.

In 2019, KBank extended more than Bt36 billion in unsecured loans.

For 2020, KBank has set a target of increasing its consumer lending by Bt178 billion, representing an increase of 30 per cent over the year.

SCB president Sarut Ruttanaporn said on Wednesday (January 29) that after having closely observed the new coronavirus outbreak spreading to many countries, including Thailand, the SCB was deeply concerned about its impact and was prepared to fully support its clients in overcoming any challenges arising from this situation.

As an interim measure, SCB has approved urgent help to affected hotel operators in dealing with any short-term impact and to make them ready to withstand any future situations.

He added that SCB understood how the hotel and tourism segment will be impacted by the outbreak, one of the key drivers of the Thai economy. Therefore, the bank has deemed it necessary to launch emergency measures to support both big and small and medium-sized hotels nationwide to alleviate their concerns, while offering flexibility to businesses to help them deal with the situation.

Initially, the bank will help lessen short-term impact by offering a grace period of up to six months, and will closely monitor and evaluate the situation.

If the crisis prolongs, the bank said it was ready for more measures to support its customers.