■ TSMC sales continue to grow
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufact-uring Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest contract chip manufacturer, said yesterday its sales for last month came in at NT$27.3 billion (US$845 million), up two percent from NT$26.77 billion in May.
Last month's figure was up 35.8 percent from a year earlier.
In the first six months of the year, TSMC's sales rose 38.8 percent to NT$158.52 billion, the company said, with sales for the three months to last month at NT$81.23 billion.
At an investor conference in late April, TSMC had said it expected its sales in the second quarter to last month to increase to NT$79 billion to NT$81 billion from NT$77.29 billion in the first quarter.
■ Elitegroup to acquire Uniwill
Elitegroup Computer System Co (精英電腦), the nation's leading motherboard maker, yesterday announced that it will acquire second-tier notebook maker Uniwill Computer Corp (志合電腦), in a bid to lower production costs and boost competitiveness.
Elitegroup will buy over Uniwill through a share swap, with one share of Elitegroup exchanging for two Uniwill shares. The completion date will be on Dec. 1, according to Elitegroup's statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The company did not specify the transaction amount.
■ Formosa Plastics eyes approval
Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), one of Taiwan's leading petrochemical manufacturers, is seeking approval from Chinese authorities for a massive investment in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday.
The report said Wang Wen-yuan (王文淵), the group's chairman, is visiting Beijing to push for the NT$300 billion ($9.26 billion) petrochemical project which is expected to include an oil refinery with an annual capacity of 10 million tonnes and a naphtha cracking facility with a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes.
■ Mandarin takes Brazil aircraft
Brazil-based Embraer SA said yesterday that Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) has chosen its 190 and 195 E-Jets as the core aircraft for its future fleet requirements.
Mandarin Airlines, a unit of Taiwan's largest carrier China Airlines (華航), has decided to acquire a fleet of eight aircraft under operating leases initially and has signed a contract with GE Commercial Aviation Services (GECAS) to lease three Embraer 190 and five 195 aircraft.
With these orders coming from the existing GECAS holdings, deliveries are scheduled to begin in the second quarter of next year.
In addition to replacing its existing fleet of Fokker 100s and Fokker 50s on domestic routes, Mandarin Airlines will use the new generation of E-Jets to develop short-haul intra-regional markets throughout Asia.
■ Local Google pack launched
Search titan Google Inc yesterday launched a local version of Google Pack beta for Taiwanese users, a free collection of software including Google toolbar for Internet Explorer, Adobe Reader, RealPlayer, Norton AntiVirus and others, the company said in a statement.
Google Pack includes the Google Updater which intelligently downloads, installs and maintains all the software in the Google Pack, the statement said. Google Updater alerts users when new programs become available and ensures each program is always up-to-date, it said.
■ NT dollar closes higher
The New Taiwan dollar gained against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange market, rising NT$0.05 to close at NT$32.347 on a turnover of US$615 million.
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