TSMC limits stock options
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) will limit the number of stock options it offers to employees as bonuses to 120 million this year, the company said in a statement yesterday.
TSMC's board of directors approved the plan yesterday, and said net sales for the first half of this year were NT$89,247 million, and net income NT$16,088 million. Earnings per share for the first six months were NT$0.79, it said.
The board also approved the nomination of Lora Ho (何麗梅) as vice president and chief financial officer to replace Harvey Chang (張孝威). Chang left TSMC to take over as head of Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大). James Chen, currently deputy director in TSMC's accounting department, was appointed as controller to fill the position left vacant by Ho's promotion, effective Sept. 8.
Manufacturing systems better
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd (特許), which has lagged competitors in making the latest chips, said it boosted the quality of its most advanced manufacturing systems by 25 percent in the four months ended May.
The improvement came in the production of so-called 0.13-micron chips, the company said in a statement, as the world's fourth-largest provider of made-to-order chips has been trying to improve its manufacturing systems to catch up with industry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電).
In the second quarter, Chartered Semiconductor earned 6 percent of its sales from 0.13-micron chips, or US$9.78 million. TSMC earned 17 percent of its sales on the same basis, or about US$249 million. No. 2 United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) also earned 6 percent, or about US$38 million.
Government develops industries
Service-oriented industries are Taiwan's economic lifeline and the government is poised to develop a variety of businesses in the sector as a means of giving the country a bigger role in international activities and ensuring the country's sustainable development, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday.
Chen made the remarks while addressing the 2003 New Era Distribution and Creation Business Conference sponsored by the Taiwan Franchise and Chain Stores Association.
Taiwan's franchise and chain-store sector has successfully set itself up as a role model over the past 20 years for the domestic business community, Chen said.
Stressing that promoting service-oriented industries forms an essential part of the government's economic policy, Chen said the government is determined to use knowledge from the academic and industry sectors to do this.
NT dollar likely to strengthen
The New Taiwan dollar is likely to strengthen further to 34 to the US dollar in the coming months as the benchmark index of the local stock market stands a good chance of closing in on and even breaching 6,000 points, analysts said.
Foreign institutions and retailers posted a cumulative US$52.27 billion in net inward remittances as of the end of July, up from US$42.97 billion at the end of last year, according to government statistics.
"I believe we may have to wait a while longer for the NT dollar to actually test the 34.00 to the US dollar level. This must be the case as the stock market is also consolidating after previous solid gains in recent months," a forex dealer with a leading local bank said.
NT dollar trades lower
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.003 to close at NT$34.115 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$545 million.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day