■ Shares remain flat
Shares closed with little change yesterday as investors opted to lock in profits after early gains that were inspired by a strong Wall Street performance overnight, dealers said.
The TAIEX slipped 1.26 points to 7,736.20, on a turnover of NT$103.63 billion (US$3.13 billion).
Decliners led risers 670 to 428, with 208 stocks unchanged.
On the foreign exchange market, the New Taiwan dollar lost ground against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.017 to close at NT$33.125.
■ CPC cuts wholesale gas prices
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) yesterday announced cuts to wholesale gasoline prices by NT$0.5 per liter and diesel prices by NT$0.6 per liter to reflect the declining oil prices. The new rates went into effective at 12am this morning.
Smaller rival Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) later said it would lower its prices to match CPC Taiwan's, effective 2am today.
■ ASE to supply Qimonda AG
The biggest chip packager in the world, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), said in a statement yesterday that it will supply Qimonda AG with volume quantities of substrate solutions for the production of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips for computers and server markets.
ASE Electronics Inc (日月光電子), affiliated with ASE, will be one of Qimonda's strategic substrate suppliers for the German company's chip production facilities worldwide, the statement said.
■ KFC to change tray mat papers
Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants have decided to change the tray mat papers in their 140 outlets in response to a survey released by the Consumers' Foundation (消基會) yesterday over fluorescence concerns.
The survey showed that six fast-food chains, including McDonald's, KFC, Burger King and Mos Burger, and three hot pot places were found to use tray mats or placemats that contain fluorescent whitening agents, in violation of Article 5 of the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法).
The foundation worried that consumers might ingest the chemical substance since many prefer placing French fries and tomato sauce on the papers.
McDonald's and Burger King said they will conduct their own examinations and decide how to respond after the results are known.
■ Taipei 101 releases earnings
The Taipei 101 Observatory has generated more than NT$800 million (US$24 million) in total revenue from the sale of entrance tickets and souvenirs since opening two years ago, a Taipei 101 executive said yesterday.
Taipei 101's assistant vice president Michael Liu (劉家豪) said that about NT$700 million in revenue came from the sale of more than 2 million tickets.
Another NT$100 million was due to sales of more than 250 kinds of souvenirs, including NT$2 million from 95 newly presented items of the "Damper Baby" series developed in cooperation with Japan's Sanrio Co.
Taipei 101 may launch its own online souvenir shop in the second half of this year to test the overseas market, Liu said.
■ BenQ sells 105 million shares
Taiwanese electronics maker BenQ Corp (明基) yesterday said it sold 105 million shares of fixed company Taiwan Fixed Network Co (台灣固網) for NT$871.5 million as part of its efforts to raise capital to repay loans. The company would book NT$178.5 million in losses from the deal. Its debt to asset ratio rose slightly to 42.75 percent last quarter.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San