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TSMC sales increase
Chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday it had registered consolidated sales of NT$32.61 billion (US$1.01 billion) last month, up from NT$29.45 billion in September.
Parent sales for the month came in at NT$31.73 billion, up from NT$28.50 billion in September and up 18.2 percent from a year earlier, said the firm, the world's largest contract maker of semiconductor chips.
Cumulative consolidated sales in the first 10 months of the year fell 3.0 percent year-on-year to NT$261.38 billion, it said.
Parent sales for the same period amounted to NT$254.38 billion, down 4.7 percent.
Meanwhile, TSMC's earlier guidance for the quarter to December remains unchanged, said Lora Ho (何麗梅), TSMC vice president and chief financial officer.
The firm said last month that it expected consolidated sales in the December quarter to rise to between NT$92 billion and NT$94 billion from NT$88.96 billion in the preceding three months.
NT dollar rises again
The New Taiwan dollar rose for a fifth week as the US currency extended declines on speculation that the Federal Reserve will continue cutting borrowing costs to revive economic growth.
The NT dollar was also buoyed as traders bet the island's central bank would keep raising interest rates to curb inflation that reached a 13-year high last month.
"We see the Taiwan dollar having the potential to gain more ground" because of the US dollar's broad-based decline, said Irene Cheung, a strategist at ABN Amro Bank NV based in Singapore. "A spike in October inflation calls for a stronger Taiwan dollar."
The NT dollar rose to close at NT$32.288 against the greenback, up from NT$32.308 on Thursday and NT$32.390 a week ago, according to Taipei Forex Inc. The currency closed near its strongest in 11 months.
Samsung stops Japan sales
Samsung Electronics Co has ceased consumer electronics sales in Japan despite the group's huge success elsewhere in the world, a company spokeswoman said yesterday.
Samsung's Japanese subsidiary stopped taking new orders from retail customers for products such as flat televisions via the Internet at the end of last month, she said.
Sales at retails shops had already ceased last year amid a tough fight against Japanese rivals on home turf.
"We had been offering our group's best products in the Japanese market where customers are strictly selective and top companies are jostling each other," the spokeswoman said.
The company wants to concentrate its resources for development on North America, Europe and emerging countries such as Brazil, she said.
More jobs, less takers
The local service industry saw an increase of 14,875 job opportunities over the past year, a spokesman for a local online job bank said on Thursday.
The total production of the service industry accounts for three-quarters of the nation's total GDP, said Monica Chiu (邱文仁), the marketing director of 104 Job Bank.
As an increasing number of local firms move production lines overseas, job opportunities in the manufacturing sector are on the decline, Chiu said, adding that there is a daily average of 31,346 manufacturing job vacancies on the Web site of the job bank, down 6 percent from last year and 22.7 percent from two years ago.
Despite the increase in openings, the employee turnover rate is high and companies have complained that it is difficult to find workers, according to Chiu.

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