■ TAIEX closes flat
Shares ended flat yesterday on profit-taking after the TAIEX rose early as it tracked Wall Street. The TAIEX finished a marginal 0.15 points higher at 5,818.22. Decliners narrowly outnumbered advancers 416 to 404, while 193 issues ended the day unchanged. The bourse's "lack of momentum is giving investors cause to take profits on even quite incremental gains," said Andrew Teng (鄧安瀾), a manager at Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券). The technology sector fell 0.4 percent as a whole, with flat-panel maker Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) 4.7 percent lower at NT$50.5.
■ Citigroup cuts Hon Hai rating
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Taiwan's largest electronics company, had a recommendation on its shares downgraded to "sell" from "buy" at Citigroup Inc, which cited a faltering profit margin. Hon Hai's first-quarter profit was NT$7.3 billion (US$230 million), 5.7 percent lower than Citigroup's forecast, Kirk Yang, an analyst at the brokerage, said today in a research report. The company reported first-quarter earnings on April 30. Hon Hai has been forced to produce lower-margin products such as notebook computers to maintain its 30 percent annual sales growth, Yang said in the report. He cut his forecast for the stock's price target in the next 12 months to NT$136 from NT$169. Hon Hai yesterday finished 3.4 percent lower at NT$143.5.
■ Quanta's Q1 profit drops 32%
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world's largest notebook-computer maker, said first-quarter profit fell 32 percent to NT$2.04 billion, or NT$0.66 a share, from NT$3 billion, or NT$1.08, a year earlier, because of lower prices and a loss from the company's investment in flat-panel displays. In a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, Quanta said full-year net income fell 10 percent to NT$12 billion last year from NT$13.3 billion a year earlier. The company's board yesterday approved a cash dividend of NT$2.5 per share, based on Quanta earnings for last year, it said in a separate filing to the stock exchange. The board also approved a proposal to give stockholders five shares for every 100 they hold.
■ Fubon Financial revises profit
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), Taiwan's second-largest financial services company by market value, said it revised its first-quarter profit higher after conducting an audit. Net income was NT$4.26 billion (US$136 million), 12 percent lower than the NT$4.84 billion posted a year earlier, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
■ ASML to supply ProMOS
ASML Holding NV, Europe's largest producer of machines to make semiconductors, won a contract to supply equipment to a new chip factory from ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技), Taiwan's second-largest maker of computer-memory chips. Financial details of the contract were not disclosed by Veldhoven, Netherlands-based ASML in its e-mailed statement yesterday. ASML's machines that will be used in ProMOS's new factory can handle silicon wafers measuring 12 inches in diameter. "Our new facility and the systems supplied by ASML will be at full production for anticipated market growth in 2006," Len Mei (梅倫), senior vice president of the manufacturing group at ProMOS, said in the statement.
■ NT dollar weakens slightly
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.001 to close at NT$31.280 on the Taipei foreign-exchange market. Turnover was US$660 million.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last