Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's biggest customized-chip maker, rose to their highest in more than six years on optimism an industry supply glut is easing.
TSMC's stock gained 5 percent to NT$69.1 at the close, its highest level since July 19, 2000. Shares of United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world's second-biggest maker of customized semiconductors, and Singapore-based Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd (SMIC, 中芯) were also up.
Analysts, such as Jonathan Koh at UOB Kay Han Research and Rick Hsu (
confidence
"The worst is over for the foundry industry, and both of the Taiwan foundries have plans to invest in new fibs, which boosts confidence," said George Wu (吳裕良), who helps manage NT$98.5 billion (US$3 billion) at Investor Taiwan Ltd (景順投信), including TSMC shares.
"We expect PS3 will do fine and we've seen Wii doing very well, while the iPhone is finally out," which will help the sector, he said.
shipments
Sony said on Tuesday that it met its shipment target for its PS3 console in the US last year, and reiterated its goal of shipping 6 million of the game players by March. Nintendo sold 1.1 million of its Wii consoles in the US by the end of last month, researcher NPD Group Inc said yesterday.
"There are some signs that the inventory oversupply is easing," said Jonathan Koh, an analyst at UOB Kay Han Research in Singapore, who has an "overweight" rating on the sector.
"Share prices of chip stocks have been laggards and there are some bargains to be had in the sector," he said.
Shares of UMC rose 3.9 percent to NT$20.1, and Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd (特許), the third-biggest maker of chips for other companies, climbed 4.9 percent to S$1.29 in Singapore, making it the fourth-largest gainer yesterday among the 48 members of the Straits Times Index.
Providers of chip packaging and testing services also rose, with Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (日月光), the world's largest chip packaging and testing company, gaining 2.7 percent to NT$37.75. Stats Chipped Ltd, Southeast Asia's largest packaging and test company, climbed 1.7 percent to S$1.17 in Singapore.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts