■ Cross-strait trade rises
Indirect trade between Taiwan and China in the six months to June rose 15.40 percent from a year earlier to US$33.54 billion, the Board of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. The figure accounted for 18.7 percent of Taiwan's total foreign trade during the six-month period, compared with 17.7 percent a year earlier, it said. Exports to the mainland during the period rose 11.80 percent to US$23.98 billion, while imports from there were up 25.5 percent at US$9.56 billion. Taiwan enjoyed a trade surplus with China of US$14.42 billion dollars, up 4.2 percent from a year earlier, it said. Despite their political differences, China has been Taiwan's largest export market since November 2002 when it replaced the United States.
■ Server shipments rise
Taiwan's x86 server market saw a shipment of 18,270 units in the second quarter of this year, up 3 percent sequentially and 20 percent from a year ago, mainly driven by soaring demand from the telecommunication and gaming sectors, according to the International Data Corp (IDC). The manufacturing sector remained the biggest buyer of x86 servers for replacement and upgrade needs, Jonathan Gu (古嘉元), an analyst at IDC's Taiwan branch, said in a report released yesterday. Despite delays in government procurement, the rapidly rising demand from the telecom and gaming sectors are expected to bolster the server market in the months to come, Gu said. IBM Taiwan Corp continued to lead the nation's x86 server market in the second quarter with a 29 percent market share, ahead of the No.2 player Hewlett-Packard Taiwan Ltd, which has 26 percent, IDC said. Taipei-based Acer Inc was ranked in third place, with a 14-percent share, after the company's markdown strategy helped boost shipments by 63 percent from the previous quarter, the report said.
■ Acer profit doubles
Acer Corp, the world's fourth-largest personal computer maker by shipments, said on Tuesday its second-quarter net profit more than doubled from a year earlier on increased shipments. The company posted a net profit of NT$2.27 billion (US$69.51 million) for the three months ended June 30, more than doubling from NT$1.01 billion for the same period a year earlier. Acer's consolidated revenue for the April-June period was NT$65.68 billion, up more than a third from NT$48.63 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Separately, Acer plans to forge an alliance with Synnex Technology International Corp (聯強) to jointly explore the mainland Chinese market, a Chinese-language newspaper reported Tuesday, citing Acer Chairman Wang Jen-tang (王振堂). The two companies will formally announce the plan in October in China, the paper said.
■ MEMC opens 12-inch fab
MEMC Electronic Materials Inc yesterday celebrated the start of 12-inch wafer production at its Taisil facility in Hsinchu. Production is targeted to reach approximately 150,000 wafers per month by the end of 2006, depending upon market demand. Nabeel Gareeb, MEMC's chief executive officer, said in a ribbon-cutting ceremony that the start of production at Taisil gives the company the opportunity to expand its presence in one of the fastest growing regions in the world. "As market conditions dictate, we can install sufficient equipment within Taisil to produce approximately 400,000 300mm (12-inch) wafers per month without impacting 200s (eight-inch) wafering capability."
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
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the