After suffering cancer for several years, he stepped down in August as chief executive, while remaining chairman of the board. The Apple board issued a statement confirming his passing.

“Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives,” Apple’s board said in the statement. “The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.”
 

The diversified telecoms group said it was encouraged by the performance in the first quarter, helped by financing activities and increased revenue in pay television and broadband services.

President and CEO Suphachai Chearavanont said cost controls and reduced interconnection charges also helped the company.

“The momentum of these moves led to growth in our revenue and earning before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) since the third quarter last year,” he said.

“Despite the unfavourable economic situation, our EBITDA and EBITDA margin in the first quarter recorded strong growth, while revenue also improved slightly.”

Revenue in the first quarter was down 2.3% year-on-year to 15.56 billion baht, but was up 2.4% from the fourth quarter.

At the mobile unit True Move revenue excluding interconnection charges grew 2.8% from the fourth quarter to 5.9 billion baht, thanks to lower net interconnection charge payments, cost controls and increased non-voice revenue.

The company added 250,000 new subscribers in the first quarter, bringing its total to 15 million.

True Online reported revenue of 6.6 billion baht, up 18%, fuelled by growth in broadband revenue, up 11.8% year-on-year to 1.3 billion baht. Broadband subscribers grew to 641,000 customers.

The pay-TV unit TrueVisions posted a 4.8% increase in revenue to 2.4 billion baht in the first quarter, with a total of 1.58 million subscribers.

Noppadol Dej-udom, the company’s chief financial officer, said the first quarter’s loss was due mainly to a foreign-exchange loss of 379 million baht. He noted that the group’s net profit of 3.4 billion baht in the first quarter last year included a forex gain of 2.5 billion baht.

He also said the group’s financial position had been improved through its recent rights offering and local bond issue, providing it with 11 billion baht in cash now. Its debt-to-EBITDA ratio now stands at 3.0 times, down from 3.8 in the fourth quarter.

True shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 1.61 baht, up one satang, in trade worth 17.62 million baht.

The company hit back, saying it would fight the ruling with an appeal in EU courts, raising the spectre of a new antitrust saga between Brussels and a US technology giant after Microsoft’s years of European legal battles.

The European Commission, Europe’s top competition watchdog, accused Intel of using illegal loyalty rebates to squeeze rivals out of the market for central processing units (CPUs) — the brains inside personal computers.

The Santa Clara, California-based company dominated the 22-billion-euro ($30-billion) market for the ubiquitous x86 CPUs with a 70-per cent share during the more than five years it was accused of breaking EU antitrust rules.

“Intel has harmed millions of European consumers by deliberately acting to keep competitors out of the market for computer chips for many years,” EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.

“Such a serious and sustained violation of the EU’s antitrust rules cannot be tolerated,” she added.

The commission said Intel had used wholly or partially hidden rebates to get PC makers such as Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo and NEC to buy all or almost all their CPU supplies from Intel instead of US rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD).

“Naturally, the commission favours strong, vigorous price competition, including by dominant firms,” Kroes told reporters in Brussels.

“However, Intel went beyond normal price competition by giving rebates to computer manufacturers on the condition that they bought all, or almost all, of their CPUs from Intel.”

Intel general counsel Bruce Sewell defended the rebates, arguing that computer makers approach the company seeking reductions and stressing that “there is no evidence that we were pricing below cost.”

EU antitrust regulators also accused Intel of paying computer manufacturers to halt or put off the launch of products containing microchips competing with Intel’s x86.

In addition, Intel allegedly paid a major electronic retailer, chain store MediaMarkt, to stock computers equipped with its chips.

The commission ordered Intel to cease any of the ongoing practices which it deemed to break EU rules.

Intel did not hesitate in challenging the commission’s ruling.

“We believe the decision is wrong and ignores the reality of a highly competitive microprocessor marketplace,” Intel president and chief executive Paul Otellini said.

“There has been absolutely zero harm to consumers. Intel will appeal,” he said.

Intel’s fine topped the previous record 899 million euros Microsoft was ordered to pay last year for failing to cooperate with the European Commission in its antitrust battles with the US software giant.

Microsoft has moreover accumulated a total fines of 1.68 billion euros and its antitrust struggle with Brussels is still ongoing.

EU regulators have been investigating Intel since it received complaints from AMD in 2000 and filed formal antitrust charges against the company in July 2007 and then again in July 2008.

“Today’s ruling is an important step toward establishing a truly competitive market,” AMD president and chief executive Dirk Meyer said in a statement.

“AMD has consistently been a technology innovation leader and we are looking forward to the move from a world in which Intel ruled, to one which is ruled by customers.”

The commission fines could be only the beginning of Intel’s problems, with the BEUC European consumer-protection association calling for a class action suit against the company to seek compensation.

“Consumers have been paying too much for their computers and they should be compensated,” BEUC director general Monique Goyens said, welcoming the commission’s ruling.

Competition watchdogs in Japan and South Korea have already accused Intel of abusing its dominant market position and US antitrust regulators stepped up a review last June by filing a subpoena for more information.