Ritek plans spinoff
Local optical-disk maker Ritek Corp (錸德) yesterday said it planned to spin off its optronics unit and expected the new business to generate NT$100 million in earnings and NT$500 million to NT$600 million in revenues this year, a report by the Chinese-language online news provider cnyes.com (鉅亨網) said, citing Ritek spokesman Eric Ai (艾元瑞).
The optronics unit will make up 2.5 percent of Ritek's total revenues, and the spinoff will take effect on Aug. 31, Ritek said, adding that it planned to list the new unit on the GRETAI Securities Market in future.
Healthy donuts launched
Mister Donut Taiwan Co (統一多拿滋) yesterday marked the opening of its 21st store near the Guting mass rapid transit station by unveiling low-calorie ball-shaped donuts. The donut firm uses high-fiber, sugar-free soybean milk to produce the latest series of confectioneries, company president Kitami Tadashi said.
The firm plans to open up to 40 stores this year and 100 shops by 2009.
"The nation's donut market has heated up again after Dunkin' Donuts entered the market," he said.
The US brand staged a comeback in January and looks to expand to 10 stores this year. It currently has four outlets, all located in the capital.
NT dollar advances
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei foreign exchange market yesterday, advancing NT$0.005 to close at NT$33.281.
Turnover was US$919 million.
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
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by