■ Infineon plans IPO
Infineon Technologies AG, Europe's second-largest maker of semiconductors, plans to sell shares in its memory-chip business in an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange in the second half of this year. The exact timing for selling shares in the unit called Qimonda AG will depend on the "market environment," the Munich-based company said in a statement yesterday. Infineon will continue to hold a majority in Qimonda after the IPO. Management board member Loh Kin Wah (羅建華) will head the new memory-chip company. Qimonda became a legally independent division on May 1 and Infineon's supervisory board approved the IPO plan yesterday.
■ Tatung chief passes away
Tatung Co's (大同) chief executive passed away yesterday after succumbing to kidney failure, according to a company statement. The 88-year-old Lin Ting-sheng (林挺生) died at his home at 12:20pm in the company of his family members, the statement read. Lin took charge of Tatung in 1942. Under his leadership, Tatung enjoyed an impressive history, becoming the first company to produce electronic fans in 1949, and the first private company in Taiwan to make an initial public offering in 1957. Lin officially passed his chairmanship to son Lin Wei-shan (林蔚山) in March, and assumed the role of chief executive. Founded in 1918, Tatung is the nation's leading maker of home appliances and industrial motors.
■ Ministry touts Americas
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the quasi-official Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) will jointly host three trade workshops next week aimed at helping local manufacturers explore American markets by taking advantage of free-trade agreements, a TAITRA official said yesterday. The official said that the Free Trade Area of the Americas is expected to become the world's largest trading bloc in the foreseeable future, and Taiwanese entrepreneurs should seek to make inroads into American markets as early as possible in order to speed up globalization of their business operations.
■ IT conference underway
A two-day forum on cross-strait information technology standardization opened in Taipei yesterday. The seminar was organized by Taiwan's SinoCon Foundation, headed by Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) -- a vice chairman of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). China's Information Industry Vice Minister Jiang Yaoping (蔣耀平) arrived in Taipei on Tuesday with a 44-member delegation to participate in the conference.
■ Eva plans new route
EVA Airways Corp (長榮) plans to launch a new route to the Japanese city of Nagoya beginning July 10, airlines officials said yesterday. "We will provide five round-trip flights weekly between Taipei and Nagoya," spokesman Nieh Kuo-wei (聶國維) said. He said the new route would bring to six the number of Japanese destinations serviced by the company. The other Japanese cities EVA flies to are Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Sendai and Sapporo. Nieh said EVA would also expand its Taipei-Osaka service from seven to nine flights weekly beginning July 10 and to 11 flights per week beginning in the winter.
■ NT dollar appreciates
The NT dollar rose yesterday after the Japanese yen surged to an eight-month high, dealers said. The NT dollar rose NT$0.159 to close at NT$31.338 per US dollar on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$1.123 billion.
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