■ Shares down sharply
Shares closed sharply lower yesterday, falling 2.02 percent on heavy profit-taking by foreign investors after recent gains, dealers said.
The TAIEX lost 153.56 points to finish at 7,458.56, on turnover of NT$126.41 billion (US$4.0 billion).
Stock decliners outnumbered gainers 1,035 to 236, with 127 stocks unchanged.
■ High Tech to launches buyback
High Tech Computer Corp (HTC, 宏達電), the world's largest maker of handsets running Microsoft Corp's operating system, yesterday said it planned to launch a maximum NT$4 billion share buyback over the next 45 days.
That marked the first share buyback the company has embarked upon in the last three years.
HTC said it planned to repurchase 5 million shares, or 1.15 percent of its total shares outstanding, at a price between NT$601 and NT$800 each, it said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
■ EVA introduces text service
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), Taiwan's second largest airline, announced yesterday that passengers flying on the company's Airbus 330-200 and Boeing 777-300ER jets will be able to send and receive text messages.
The text message service is integrated into the inflight entertainment system that allows passengers to send messages to e-mail accounts or cellphone numbers at US$1.50 per message, the carrier said in a statement yesterday.
Return messages will also cost US$1.50 to read, EVA Airways said.
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
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”