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Mastercard's Profit Jumps on Strong Holiday Spending

A sticker shows that a store accepts MasterCard in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
A sticker shows that a store accepts MasterCard in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
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Mastercard's Profit Jumps on Strong Holiday Spending

A sticker shows that a store accepts MasterCard in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo
A sticker shows that a store accepts MasterCard in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, July 25, 2018. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

Mastercard reported a higher fourth-quarter profit on Thursday as a resilient economy encouraged consumers to ramp up spending during the holiday season, sending the company's shares up 2% before the bell.

Spending continues to be underpinned by a solid labor market and wage growth that have spurred consumer confidence, while retailers also offered discounts to attract budget-conscious shoppers during the holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Mastercard's gross dollar volume, the value of all transactions processed on the company's platform, rose 12% in the fourth quarter.

Cross-border volume, which tracks spending on cards outside of the country of their issue, jumped 20%, Reuters reported.

Mastercard has a more balanced global exposure compared with its peers, with the company benefiting from continued stability in volume growth, analysts have said.

The company has also focused on bolstering its value-added services such as fraud protection to diversify its business model.

Revenue from the company's value-added services and solutions unit rose 17% in the fourth quarter. Mastercard's net revenue increased 16% to $7.49 billion.

The company forecast 2025 net revenue to increase in the low double-digits percentage range, compared with the average analyst estimate of 12.7% growth, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Mastercard's net income rose to $3.34 billion, or $3.64 per share, in the three months ended Dec. 31, compared with $2.79 billion, or $2.97 per share, a year earlier.

American Express last week also reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue on strong holiday spending.

Mastercard's shares jumped 23.5% in 2024, outperforming rival Visa's 21.4% gain. Last month, Mastercard unveiled a $12 billion share repurchase program.

Visa, the world's largest payments processor, will report earnings later in the day.

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Technology

Samsung Starts Mass Production of Next-gen AI Memory Chip

A man walks past the logo of Samsung Electronics displayed on a glass door at the company's Seocho building in Seoul on January 29, 2026. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)
A man walks past the logo of Samsung Electronics displayed on a glass door at the company's Seocho building in Seoul on January 29, 2026. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)
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Samsung Starts Mass Production of Next-gen AI Memory Chip

A man walks past the logo of Samsung Electronics displayed on a glass door at the company's Seocho building in Seoul on January 29, 2026. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)
A man walks past the logo of Samsung Electronics displayed on a glass door at the company's Seocho building in Seoul on January 29, 2026. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP)

Samsung Electronics has started mass production of a next-generation memory chip to power artificial intelligence, the South Korean firm announced Thursday, touting an "industry-leading" breakthrough.

The high-bandwidth "HBM4" chips are a key component for AI data centers, with US tech giant Nvidia -- now the world's most valuable company -- widely expected to be one of Samsung's main customers.

Samsung said it had "begun mass production of its industry-leading HBM4 and has shipped commercial products to customers".

"This achievement marks a first in the industry, securing an early leadership position in the HBM4 market," AFP quoted it as saying in a statement.

A global frenzy to build AI data centers has sent orders for advanced, high-bandwidth memory microchips soaring.

South Korea's two chip giants, SK hynix and Samsung, have been racing to start HBM4 production.

Taipei-based research firm TrendForce predicts that memory chip industry revenue will surge to a global peak of more than $840 billion in 2027.

The South Korean government has pledged to become one of the world's top three AI powers, alongside the United States and China.

Samsung and SK hynix are among the leading producers of high-performance memory chips.

Technology

Siemens Energy Trebles Profit as AI Boosts Power Demand

FILED - 05 August 2025, Berlin: The "Siemens Energy" logo can be seen in the entrance area of the company. Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa
FILED - 05 August 2025, Berlin: The "Siemens Energy" logo can be seen in the entrance area of the company. Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa
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Siemens Energy Trebles Profit as AI Boosts Power Demand

FILED - 05 August 2025, Berlin: The "Siemens Energy" logo can be seen in the entrance area of the company. Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa
FILED - 05 August 2025, Berlin: The "Siemens Energy" logo can be seen in the entrance area of the company. Photo: Britta Pedersen/dpa

German turbine maker Siemens Energy said Wednesday that its quarterly profits had almost tripled as the firm gains from surging demand for electricity driven by the artificial intelligence boom.

The company's gas turbines are used to generate electricity for data centers that provide computing power for AI, and have been in hot demand as US tech giants like OpenAI and Meta rapidly build more of the sites.

Net profit in the group's fiscal first quarter, to end-December, climbed to 746 million euros ($889 million) from 252 million euros a year earlier.

Orders -- an indicator of future sales -- increased by a third to 17.6 billion euros.

The company's shares rose over five percent in Frankfurt trading, putting the stock up about a quarter since the start of the year and making it the best performer to date in Germany's blue-chip DAX index.

"Siemens Energy ticked all of the major boxes that investors were looking for with these results," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note, adding that the company's gas turbine orders were "exceptionally strong".

US data center electricity consumption is projected to more than triple by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency, and already accounts for six to eight percent of US electricity use.

Asked about rising orders on an earnings call, Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch said he thought the first-quarter figures were not "particularly strong" and that further growth could be expected.

"Demand for gas turbines is extremely high," he said. "We're talking about 2029 and 2030 for delivery dates."

Siemens Energy, spun out of the broader Siemens group in 2020, said last week that it would spend $1 billion expanding its US operations, including a new equipment plant in Mississippi as part of wider plans that would create 1,500 jobs.

Its shares have increased over tenfold since 2023, when the German government had to provide the firm with credit guarantees after quality problems at its wind-turbine unit.

Technology

Instagram Boss to Testify at Social Media Addiction Trial 

The Instagram app icon is seen on a smartphone in this illustration taken October 27, 2025. (Reuters)
The Instagram app icon is seen on a smartphone in this illustration taken October 27, 2025. (Reuters)
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Instagram Boss to Testify at Social Media Addiction Trial 

The Instagram app icon is seen on a smartphone in this illustration taken October 27, 2025. (Reuters)
The Instagram app icon is seen on a smartphone in this illustration taken October 27, 2025. (Reuters)

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri is to be called to testify Wednesday in a Los Angeles courtroom by lawyers out to prove social media is dangerously addictive by design to young, vulnerable minds.

YouTube and Meta -- the parent company of Instagram and Facebook -- are defendants in a blockbuster trial that could set a legal precedent regarding whether social media giants deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive to children.

Rival lawyers made opening remarks to jurors this week, with an attorney for YouTube insisting that the Google-owned video platform was neither intentionally addictive nor technically social media.

"It's not social media addiction when it's not social media and it's not addiction," YouTube lawyer Luis Li told the 12 jurors during his opening remarks.

The civil trial in California state court centers on allegations that a 20-year-old woman, identified as Kaley G.M., suffered severe mental harm after becoming addicted to social media as a child.

She started using YouTube at six and joined Instagram at 11, before moving on to Snapchat and TikTok two or three years later.

The plaintiff "is not addicted to YouTube. You can listen to her own words -- she said so, her doctor said so, her father said so," Li said, citing evidence he said would be detailed at trial.

Li's opening arguments followed remarks on Monday from lawyers for the plaintiffs and co-defendant Meta.

On Monday, the plaintiffs' attorney Mark Lanier told the jury YouTube and Meta both engineer addiction in young people's brains to gain users and profits.

"This case is about two of the richest corporations in history who have engineered addiction in children's brains," Lanier said.

"They don't only build apps; they build traps."

But Li told the six men and six women on the jury that he did not recognize the description of YouTube put forth by the other side and tried to draw a clear line between YouTube's widely popular video app and social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok.

YouTube is selling "the ability to watch something essentially for free on your computer, on your phone, on your iPad," Li insisted, comparing the service to Netflix or traditional TV.

Li said it was the quality of content that kept users coming back, citing internal company emails that he said showed executives rejecting a pursuit of internet virality in favor of educational and more socially useful content.

- 'Gateway drug' -

Stanford University School of Medicine professor Anna Lembke, the first witness called by the plaintiffs, testified that she views social media, broadly speaking, as a drug.

The part of the brain that acts as a brake when it comes to having another hit is not typically developed before a person is 25 years old, Lembke, the author of the book "Dopamine Nation," told jurors.

"Which is why teenagers will often take risks that they shouldn't and not appreciate future consequences," Lembke testified.

"And typically, the gateway drug is the most easily accessible drug," she said, describing Kaley's first use of YouTube at the age of six.

The case is being treated as a bellwether proceeding whose outcome could set the tone for a wave of similar litigation across the United States.

Social media firms face hundreds of lawsuits accusing them of leading young users to become addicted to content and suffer from depression, eating disorders, psychiatric hospitalization, and even suicide.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs are borrowing strategies used in the 1990s and 2000s against the tobacco industry, which faced a similar onslaught of lawsuits arguing that companies knowingly sold a harmful product.