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By Giulia Segreti, Tim Hepher and Elvira Pollina ROME/PARIS/LONDON (Reuters) -A deal to forge Europe's answer to Elon Musk's Starlink was reached on Thursday as the continent's top space firms agreed to combine their satellite manufacturing and services businesses. Marking the most ambitious tie-up of European aerospace assets since the creation of missiles maker MBDA in 2001, Airbus and Thales of France and Italy's Leonardo will create a Toulouse-based venture to begin operations in 2027. French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said the preliminary deal would "strengthen European sovereignty in a context of intense global competition". Italy's Industry Minister Adolfo Urso said it supported the growth of European champions to compete globally. VENTURE FACES GLOBAL COMPETITION Code-named "Project Bromo", talks between the three groups started last year. Europe's top satellite makers have long competed to build complex spacecraft in geostationary orbit but have been hit by the arrival of cheap, tiny satellites in low Earth orbit, notably the Starlink network built by Musk's SpaceX. Thales CFO Pascal Bouchiat, announcing quarterly sales that included an initial contract for IRIS², Europe's planned secure satellite network, hailed the new venture but warned on the competition ahead. "This first development contract for IRIS² doesn't take away the challenges that the European industry, in particular, is facing," he told reporters. The new combination will employ 25,000 people with revenue of 6.5 billion euros ($7.58 billion), based on 2024 figures. It is expected to generate "mid-triple digit" millions of euros of synergies starting after five years, the companies said. Shares in Leonardo rose almost 2% while Airbus and Thales were up less than 1% in afternoon trading. "The initiative is certainly positive, as it creates a European leader capable of competing globally and improves the profitability of a business … that has struggled in recent years," analysts at Italian investment bank Equita said in a note. Shareholders now face up to two years of talks with governments, unions and the European Commission over the deal, which has implications for activities in Britain and Germany as well as Italy and France. Italian unions requested more information and said the deal should help the country's sector compete internationally. Airbus and Thales have cut a combined 3,000 jobs following space losses. The three new partners made no mention of further cuts, but executives said the focus would now turn towards potential growth. BALANCING PAYMENTS The deal will combine activities of Thales Alenia Space and Telespazio – two joint ventures between Leonardo and Thales – as well as various Airbus space and digital businesses, the remaining space activities owned by Leonardo and Thales SESO. Airbus will hold 35%, and Thales and Leonardo 32.5% each, the companies said. Sources familiar with the deal said there would be balancing payments to reflect the value of the assets being contributed, with Airbus receiving some compensation, depending on how well the various activities are doing when the deal closes in 2027. Previous attempts to combine have hit anti-trust hurdles. "We expect, and will be vigilant, that the synergies created from efficiencies benefit us as a key customer of the new company," said French satellite operator Eutelsat. The deal could face objections from smaller German satellite maker OHB, which a French parliamentary committee has said could end up acquiring some of the newly combined assets. OHB did not reply to a request for comment. Agreement between the three companies – each of which has had periods of prickly relations in the past – was salvaged after sources familiar with the matter said the talks had hit obstacles over governance and valuation during the summer. The companies gave few details regarding governance but executives pledged to avoid a system of rotating leadership or making appointments based on nationalities, approaches which have roiled the European aerospace industry, especially Airbus, in the past. ($1 = 0.8575 euros) (Additional reporting by Mathieu Rosemain, Gianluca Lo Nostro, Dominique Vidalon, Angelo Amante, Enrico Sciacovelli and Amy-Jo Crowley; editing by Kim Coghill and Jason Neely)

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(Reuters) -Super Micro Computer trimmed its first-quarter revenue forecast on Thursday, citing a shift in customer delivery schedules for large artificial intelligence deals. Shares of the company were down nearly 3% in morning trading. The stock has risen about 72% so far this year. The AI server maker said it now expects first-quarter revenue for fiscal year 2026 to be $5 billion, compared with its earlier forecast of between $6 billion and $7 billion. Analysts were expecting $6.52 billion revenue for the quarter ended September 30, according to data compiled by LSEG. Super Micro, however, reiterated its fiscal year 2026 revenue forecast of at least $33 billion, driven by what it described as "robust demand" for its AI solutions. The company said it has secured new business of more than $12 billion with delivery requested in the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Insatiable demand for servers that provide the computing power needed to run services such as ChatGPT has turned companies such as Super Micro and Dell into big winners of the generative AI boom. Major tech companies, including Alphabet, Amazon.com, Meta, Microsoft and CoreWeave, are on track to spend $400 billion on AI infrastructure this year, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. In August, Super Micro reported weakness in internal control over its financial reporting. The company disclosed in a regulatory filing that unresolved issues could "adversely affect" its ability to report results of operations in a timely and accurate manner. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)

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By Mike Scarcella (Reuters) -U.S. Google users who won a $425 million jury verdict in a consumer privacy class action last month have asked a federal judge to force the Alphabet unit to forfeit an additional $2.36 billion in profits. The consumers in a Wednesday court filing called the amount a "conservative approximation" of Google’s allegedly ill-gotten gains after the jury found the company secretly collected app activity data from millions of users who had disabled an account tracking feature. “The jury found that Google’s conduct was highly offensive, harmful, and without consent,” the consumers told Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco, who must decide if disgorgement of profits is allowed and necessary in the case.  GOOGLE HAS DENIED WRONGDOING, SAID IT WILL APPEAL The plaintiffs called the $425 million damages verdict "clearly insufficient to remedy the ongoing and irreparable harm that Google’s conduct continues to inflict." Google and attorneys for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Google has denied wrongdoing and said it will appeal. It argued the data it collected was anonymized and that its privacy tools give users control over their data. The 2020 lawsuit alleged Google over an eight-year period accessed users' mobile devices to collect, save and use their data, violating privacy assurances under an account setting called Web & App Activity. The jury found Google liable on two of three privacy claims brought by the plaintiffs, who had sought more than $31 billion in damages at trial. Despite the verdict, Google has not changed its privacy disclosures or data collection practices, the plaintiffs said. Google on Wednesday asked Seeborg to decertify the class of 98 million users and 174 million devices, arguing that the claims depend on individualized factors such as app usage and user expectations. It also urged the judge to vacate the verdict, citing a lack of common issues. (Reporting by Mike Scarcella. Editing by David Bario and Mark Potter)

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By Harshita Mary Varghese (Reuters) -T-Mobile added more than 1 million monthly bill-paying wireless subscribers to top estimates in the third quarter and raised its annual forecast, powered by a wave of customers switching from rivals during the crucial iPhone launch period. For U.S. wireless carriers, the reported quarter is seasonally critical as Apple's latest iPhone models typically trigger a spike in upgrades and new subscriptions. "In Q3, we hit an all-time high in our network perception amongst switchers and that's a big driver to the outperformance we're seeing," incoming CEO Srinivasan Gopalan said on Thursday. "This has been our best iPhone performance." T-Mobile's premium plans have helped it win a larger share of "jump-balls" in what analysts have described as a "musical chairs" environment. The monthly-bill paying wireless subscriber additions marked T-Mobile's highest in the third quarter in more than a decade. Analysts had expected 844,900 additions, according to FactSet. However, shares slipped about 2% in early trading after the company raised its annual capital expense forecast by $500 million to about $10 billion, driven by the inclusion of newly acquired UScellular. SATELLITE PLAN BIG DRAW T-Mobile is also drawing customers with its T-Satellite plan, which allows users to connect in remote or rural areas where traditional wireless service is limited. A vast majority of users that are opting for the direct-to-cell service are getting it through T-Mobile's "Experience Beyond" plan, which offers it at no extra cost, Mike Katz, president of marketing, strategy and products, T-Mobile, told Reuters. T-Satellite, which commercially launched in July with access limited to SMS texting, MMS, picture messaging and short audio clips, now supports widely used apps, including WhatsApp, Google Maps and X. The carrier now expects to add between 7.2 million and 7.4 million total postpaid net customers in 2025, compared with its prior projection of 6.1 million to 6.4 million additions. Total revenue for the third quarter came in at $21.96 billion, compared with expectations for $21.92 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG. (Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)

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By Chris Kirkham (Reuters) -Tesla’s groundbreaking 2017 Model 3 electric sedan, followed by a taller Model Y variant, ushered in the era of mass-market electric cars, made Tesla the world’s most valuable automaker and CEO Elon Musk the world’s richest man. But years later, Tesla’s stalling car business remains almost entirely dependent on that one breakthrough – and it may continue to be for years to come.  The automaker's only model since then, the Cybertruck, flopped. Tesla now has next to nothing in the product pipeline for human drivers as Musk refocuses the company on self-driving technology and humanoid robots. A new Roadster supercar, unveiled in 2017 as a prototype, has yet to arrive and would serve only a super-wealthy niche. The automaker last year killed a project to make a $25,000 EV and instead, earlier this month, introduced stripped-down versions of the Model 3 and Model Y costing $37,000 and $40,000, respectively. And that’s it – Musk has promised no other new or redesigned human-driven vehicles. Tesla's apparent neglect of its core car business poses major risks for investors and will test whether the U.S. electric-vehicle pioneer can sustain growth without regular new-model launches, analysts say.  Tesla did not respond to requests for comment. Tesla has not fully redesigned any model in two decades in an industry where models often have short shelf lives – and where Tesla’s leading EV rivals in China are launching new vehicles at a dizzying pace in every conceivable segment. Instead, Tesla continues to treat its models much like iPhones that need only incremental improvements delivered in software updates to stay competitive. Some industry observers see no reason why that cannot work. While traditional automakers spend heavily on regular hardware and styling overhauls, Tesla has succeeded in delivering a “high-margin product with no frills” serving customers who care more about its updatable technology than its appearance, said Adrian Balfour, founder of Envorso, a technology consulting firm that works with the automotive industry.  "I don’t think they have to do a ton of redesign-type work" to vehicles like its best-selling Model Y, he said. 'LIKE ANY OTHER BRAND' Others argue that Tesla cannot indefinitely defy the automotive industry’s law of gravity – that sales fall as models age.  Tom Libby, an S&P Global Mobility analyst, said Tesla’s customer loyalty rate plunged last year and improved only after Tesla doubled its average spending on product incentives.  "The data show that Tesla is like any other brand," Libby said. "Over the long term, there’s going to have to be some major product actions or the brand will keep going down." Tesla vehicle sales fell 6% through the first three quarters of this year. Now it faces steep challenges from U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping rollback of government support for EVs, including a $7,500-per-vehicle tax credit for consumers that expired last month. The pending tax-credit expiration boosted Tesla vehicle sales in the third quarter as customers hurried purchases to get the subsidy. That boosted revenue in quarterly financial results the company released on Wednesday.  But profit nonetheless fell by 37% because of higher costs from Trump's tariffs, increased research-and-development spending and falling revenue from the sale of government regulatory credits to other automakers. Musk and other Tesla executives said little during the earnings call about its current automotive business, which accounted for 88% of its third-quarter revenue, and focused instead on future plans for self-driving robotaxis and humanoid robots. When Tesla recently made cosmetic updates to the models 3 and Y – a "refresh" in industry parlance – the subtle changes were not enough to generate the sales bumps often gained by traditional automakers after major redesigns of models from the ground up, Libby said.  On average, automakers in the United States overhaul their models every eight years, according to S&P Global Mobility data, a time frame that has shortened over the last decade. Many mass-market models are redesigned more frequently; trucks and luxury vehicles are overhauled less often. Redevelopment cycles globally could get radically shorter soon as traditional automakers respond to intense competitive pressure from China’s heavily subsidized electric vehicle industry.  Chinese EV makers led by BYD, Tesla’s leading global rival, have slashed model development times to two years or less. The fast iteration has allowed Chinese EV makers to “keep up with trends, keep up with what consumer products are doing,” said Dan Hearsch, co-leader of the automotive and industrial practice at consultancy AlixPartners. "It's half the time, and it’s also half the fixed costs." BYD, for example, launched at least 17 SUV models from 2020 through 2025, about double the number of new or redesigned Ford SUVs launched in that period. Tesla, by comparison, has released only the triangular, stainless-steel Cybertruck since the Model Y began production in early 2020.  It has launched just six vehicles since 2008, including the Model S sedan, Model X sport-utility vehicle and its first car, the short-lived Roadster two-seater. Only the models 3 and Y, which share the same platform and most components, have sold in high volumes. Musk predicted Tesla would sell hundreds of thousands of Cybertrucks annually. So far this year, through September, Tesla sold about 16,000 of them, according to research firm Cox Automotive.  A successful pickup would have given Tesla a foothold in one of the best-selling U.S. auto segments.  Libby said the automaker’s unusually small lineup also leaves Tesla out of other huge-selling segments, such as mass-market three-row SUVs, which account for 13% of U.S. vehicle sales, according to S&P Global Mobility data. (The Model X offers a tight, optional third row in the luxury segment.) The Model 3 is in a smaller, declining segment – compact cars. The bigger problem for the models 3 and Y may be their advancing age, said Garrett Nelson, an analyst at CFRA Research who tracks Tesla. “You can’t have a portfolio that’s that stale,” he said. “They will be paying a price.” (Reporting by Chris Kirkham in Los Angeles; Editing by Brian Thevenot and Matthew Lewis)

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