■ Copyright
D-Link wants to settle: VIA
VIA Technologies Inc (威盛電子), the nation's second-biggest designer of semiconductors, said D-Link Corp (友訊科技) expects Via to pay NT$100 million (US$3 million) to settle allegations that its chairwoman and its president stole software developed by D-Link. VIA chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) and president Chen Wen-chi (陳文琦), who both appeared in the Taipei District Court on Monday, will cooperate with the investigation, VIA said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The court case will have no immediate impact on VIA's financial performance, the company said. VIA ended two quarters of losses last year with a NT$46.1 million profit in the three months to Sept. 30. D-Link hopes to settle the dispute amicably, said the company's lawyer, Chang Yi-ming (張冀明). D-Link makes networking equipment used to help personal computers exchange data and other information.
■ Computers
Wistron sees strong sales
Wistron Corp (緯創資通), a former Acer Inc computer manufacturing unit, expects its sales this year to rise by 40 percent from last year to NT$108 billion (US$3.2 billion) on demand for notebook PCs, according to chairman Simon Lin (林憲明). Wistron's shipments of laptop PCs, which it makes for customers such as Dell Inc and Hewlett-Packard Co, will soar by about 75 percent to 3.5 million units, the company said. Acer plans to cut its stake in Wistron to 32 percent from 37 percent by selling Wistron stock overseas this year. Acer has inflated profit with one-time gains from selling shares in companies such as Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大), BenQ Corp (明基電通) and Ambit Microsystems Corp (國電).
■ Shipping
Kaohsiung to stay open
The Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau will continue to provide normal information services during the Lunar New Year holiday from today to Jan. 26, bureau officials said Monday. The officials said that the bureau has opened an online service to provide information around the clock on its operations, including warehousing, business, shipping and navigation, berth instruction, vessels at port, their status, arrivals and departures.
■ Stocks
Foreigners buy more
Foreign investors increased their possession of Taiwan-ese stocks in the past year with total ownership amounting to NT$3.158 trillion (US$92.8 billion) as of Jan. 16, according to statistics released Monday by the Taiwan Stock Ex-change Corp (TESC). The ownership is an increase of NT$1.514 trillion, or 92.06 percent, over the year before, a TSEC spokesman said. Foreign investors bought NT$186.65 billion worth of Taiwanese stocks and sold NT$105.54 billion worth of them during the period between the first trading day of this year and Jan. 16, he added.
■ Currency
NT dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar weakened as the halt in stock market trading for holidays this week dampend demand for the currency from international investors. The currency also fell after the yen dropped against the US dollar in New York trading, fanning concern Taiwan's exports will be less price-competitive, compared with Japanese goods. The NT dollar declined NT$0.039, or 0.1 percent, to close at NT$33.719 on the Taipei forex market. Turnover was US$652 million.
■ Aviation
Dragonair taking on Cathay
No. 2 Hong Kong carrier Dragonair said yesterday that it will compete with its larger part-owner Cathay Pacific Airways on one more route by launching flights to Tokyo in April. Dragonair will fly five times a week between Hong Kong and Tokyo, compared to five times daily for Cathay. Cathay owns about 18 percent of Dragonair and they used to cooperate without competing. Dragon-air began competing with Cathay on Hong Kong-Taipei routes in 2002, and Cathay later secured the right to compete with Dragonair on some of its routes into China. Dragonair also competes now with Cathay on flights into Bangkok but has not yet begun using rights it acquired to fly into Seoul, Manila and Sydney -- all sites served by Cathay.
■ Hong Kong
Cellphone accounts soar
Hong Kong, famed for its love of gadgets and tech-nology, now has more mobile-phone accounts than people, according to official figures released on Monday. The territory of 6.8 million people has 7.07 million mobile-phone accounts, according to figures from the Telecommunications Authority. The figure, which includes pre-paid SIM cards, has risen sharply over the past year despite an econo-mic slump as the city embraces advances in phone technology. Phones that take digital pictures have proved particularly popular. Many people have more than one mobile phone and nearly 2.7 million pre-paid SIM cards are currently in use. Despite predictions early last year that the mobile-phone mar-ket had reached saturation point, the number of accounts leapt last year.
■ Steel
China fuels Japan's output
Nippon Steel Corp and other Japanese steelmakers boosted output by a com-bined 2.6 percent last year to cater to growing demand from China, the world's biggest consumer of the alloy. Steel output in Japan, the second-largest producer, rose to 110.5 million tonnes last year, the Brussels-based International Iron and Steel Institute said in a report on world steel production. Japan produced 107.75 million tonnes of crude steel in 2002. Nippon Steel, JFE Holdings, Sumitomo Metal Industries and other Japan-ese steelmakers increased production to meet a short-age in China of steel used in making automobiles and home appliances. The price of hot-rolled steel coils imported by China surged 26 percent to US$312 per tonne last year, from an average US$247.65 per tonne in 2002, according to Metal Bulletin Inc. China, the world's largest maker of crude steel, produced a record 220.1 million tonnes last year, accounting for 23 percent of global output. The 21 percent increase in Chinese steel production wasn't enough to meet demand.
■ Internet
IFPI eyes European suits
The International Federa-tion of the Phonographic Industry plans to start legal action against illegal music file sharers outside the US, the Wall Street Journal Europe said, citing Allen Dixon, the federation's general counsel. Figures due to be released by the group this week are likely to show a decline in illegal downloads in the US since the recording industry started litigation against individual file- sharers last year, the paper said. Non-US residents are responsible for more than 10 percent of music files available illegally on the Internet, according to the paper.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained