Passenger car sales at Ford Motor's China joint venture will likely rise by close to 50% in 2009, partly due to government incentives for purchases of small vehicles, according to Nigel Harris, general manager of the joint venture.

Samsung Electronics has set its 2010 capital expenditure at 8.5 trillion won (US$7.4 billion), up from this year's planned seven trillion won, the Maeil Business Newspaper reported in its early Thursday edition.

"Strong sales on Black Friday may simply reflect households bringing forward some of their intended holiday spending rather than a sign that spending over the whole holiday period will be strong..."

Toshiba eked out a small profit in the July-September quarter on cost-cutting and higher sales of memory chips. The electronics company reported a net profit of 100 million yen (US$1.1 million) for the fiscal second quarter, up from a net loss of 26.9 billion yen in the same period a year earlier.

Nokia has reported a loss for the July to September quarter after sales sank by almost a fifth.

Samsung Electronics has estimated it made a record quarterly operating profit of 4.1 trillion won (3.5 billion dollars) in July-September. Consolidated sales for the quarter are estimated at 36 trillion won, up from 30.27 trillion a year ago.

Fans have been holding their breath since Sony released its new Slim version of the fabled console system. How has the console held up in the market? Has Sony rebounded from the previous years of lagging sales and criticism?

Virtex-5 sales are expected to increase significantly in the September quarter, surpassing 20% of total sales, according to Xilinx. The company is scheduled to report its second quarter financial results on October 14, 2009.

The European Semiconductor Sales index climbed 1.2% in July, says market research company e-forecasting.com. The indicator has increased month over months in a row over the last six months.

A slow and still-fragile recovery is taking hold across the US.

Fujitsu Services operation in the UK has announced a rationalisation programme across its workforce, proposing a reduction of up to 1,200 jobs. It currently employs 12,500 people in the UK.

Microsoft's newest operating system for PCs will launch in late October, but it won't boost PC sales enough to help the global DRAM memory chip market until the second quarter of 2010.

German semiconductor maker Infineon Technologies has posted a significantly-narrowed third-quarter net loss on improved wireless sales and manufacturing efficiency, and said it expects sales growth to continue into the fourth quarter.

Online auction giant eBay has reported a fall in profits between April and June of almost one-third, but analysts had expected a sharper fall. Net profit was US$327.3 million, down 29% compared with the US$460m made in the same period a year ago. Revenue also fell slightly, from US$2.2 billion to US$2.1 billion.