Stocks rose as the TAIEX had its biggest gain in four weeks. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
Exporters such as Quanta Computer Inc (
The TAIEX rose 97.18, or 2.2 percent, to close at 4,476.17. For the week, the index rose 2.9 percent, its first weekly gain in three weeks.
MSCI Taiwan futures for March delivery in Singapore rose 3.6 percent to 191.80. The Taiwan Futures Index advanced 2.9 percent to 4,479.
More than 10 stocks rose for every one that fell. The value of trade was NT$70.5 billion (US$2 billion), 5.6 percent lower than the daily average in the past three months.
Royal Philips, Europe's largest consumer-electronics maker, will shed 1,600 jobs at its semiconductor unit, the Dutch company's most unprofitable business.
"The Philips news is positive and is lifting sentiment for the overall electronics group of shares," said Jim Chang (
"Philips is a big shareholder of TSMC, and because foundries are a high fixed-cost business, Philips may help boost capacity utilization at TSMC," Chang said.
TSMC rose NT$1.40, or 3.2 percent, to NT$45.50. Quanta rose NT$2, or 3.2 percent, to NT$64.50. Hon Hai rose NT$2, or 1.8 percent, to NT$116.50.
Asia Cement Corp (亞泥) rose NT$0.45, or 3.4 percent, to NT$13.75. The country's second-largest cement maker by market value said it plans to invest $44.1 million to set up a joint venture with a cement company in Hubei, China. Asia Cement also said it plans to sell a NT$1 billion secured bond. The company also plans to pay dividends of NT$0.50 a share.
Aurora Corp (震旦行) rose NT$0.40, or 3 percent, to NT$13.70. The retailer of mobile phones plans to add 130 shops to boost its outlets to 300 in the country this year, mainly through franchising, a local newspaper cited the company as saying.
Aurora wants to tap the domestic market that's forecast to grow as much as 15 percent to 7 million cellular phones this year.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li