■ Investors take a breather
Shares ended with little change yesterday as investors took a breather after sharp gains in the previous two sessions, though technology stocks remained strong overall. The TAIEX edged down 1.11 points, or 0.02 percent, to 5,966.85, on turnover of NT$63.98 billion (US$2.05 billion). A total of 507 stocks finished lower, 316 higher and 188 steady. "It's natural for the market to take a rest after two big gaining sessions," said Bill Huang, a trader at KGI Securities (中信證券). Electronics shares rose 0.3 percent as a whole. Fund managers said shares are poised for further gains, because on May 31 Morgan Stanley Capital International will give full weight to Taiwan stocks in its global indexes, which many fund managers use as benchmarks.
■ TSMC sales fall
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufact-uring Co (TSMC, 台積電) said sales fell 8.4 percent last month, the third straight monthly decline, as customers reduced stockpiles. Sales dropped to NT$18.9 billion (US$606 million) from NT$20.6 billion in April last year, the company said on its Web site yesterday. TSMC had sales of NT$17.6 billion in March. TSMC, whose customers include Intel Corp and Texas Instruments Inc, reported its first quarterly profit drop in two years during the first quarter after customers cut orders to reduce inventories. Chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) said on April 26 that industry sales will stall this year. Rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) said sales in April fell 31 percent to NT$6.37 billion from NT$9.21 billion a year earlier. Sales fell from NT$7.01 billion in March.
■ Taiwan Mobile forks out cash
Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation's third-largest wireless service provider, said yesterday that it plans to increase spending on new equipment by 30 percent this year, paving the way for the launch of its third-generation (3G) services in September. Taiwan Mobile, which changed its name last month from Taiwan Cellular Corp, will spend a total of NT$6.5 billion (US$208.6 million) on telecommunication facilities this year, up from NT$5 billion last year, financial chief executive Cheng Hui-ming (鄭慧明) said. More than half of the amount, or NT$3.8 billion, will be used in building 400 new base stations to expand the coverage of the 3G service, Cheng said. Last year, the mobile operator spent NT$2.5 billion on 3G equipment. Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) plan to lay out NT$3 billion and NT$4.5 billion respectively on the 3G equipment this year. Far EasTone is scheduled to offer its 3G services by the end of July.
■ Yulon has new model
Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車), the Taiwan partner of Japan's Nissan Motor Co, said it designed a new model for Nissan to evaluate for Chinese consumers. Yulon, Taiwan's largest automaker by market value, has submitted the design to Nissan, Yulon spokesman Charles Shiau (蕭明輝) said, confirming a newspaper report yesterday. Financial and design details of the car haven't been completed, Shiau said. It would "probably" be a utility vehicle, he said. Research and development for Nissan would generate "significant" profits for Yulon, the newspaper said, citing vice chairman Kenneth Yen (嚴凱泰). The growth pace of China's car sales dropped to 15 percent last year after surging 50 percent in 2002 and 76 percent in 2003. Car sales in China fell 3.2 percent in the first quarter, the third decline in five quarters.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured