Chunghwa Telecom profits rise
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) posted an 8 percent gain in last year's profit on rising sales from Internet and data services.
Net income last year climbed to NT$48.47 billion (US$1.5 billion) from NT$44.89 billion a year earlier, the Taipei-based company said in a statement yesterday. The company was expected to post a profit of NT$48.72 billion, according to the average estimate of 16 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Sales advanced to NT$186.3 billion from NT$184.5 billion in 2006, the company said.
Taiwan Mobile stake for sale
Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation's second-largest telecom operator, said yesterday that its fixed-line subsidiary Taiwan Fixed Network Co (台灣固網) plans to sell a 6 percent stake in Taiwan Mobile to raise operational funds.
"The board of Taiwan Fixed Network approved the proposal today [Friday]. They have reached agreements with interested investors," Taiwan Mobile spokesperson Josephine Juan (阮淑祥) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Taiwan Fixed Network was scheduled to wrap up the deal between Monday and next Thursday, Juan said.
After the sale of 300 million Taiwan Mobile shares, Taiwan Fixed Network's holding of parent company will drop from 27 percent to 21 percent.
Foxconn stocks soar in HK
Foxconn International Holdings Ltd (富士康), the world's biggest contract manufacturer of mobile phones, set a Hong Kong trading record after customer Nokia Oyj reported sales and profit that beat analysts estimates.
Foxconn stock surged 17 percent to HK$14.52 (US$1.86), the biggest jump since the company was listed in February 2005. Before today, the Shenzhen-based company had declined 29 percent in Hong Kong trading this year.
Nokia, the world's biggest handset maker, yesterday reported its fourth-quarter profit increased 44 percent to 1.84 billion euros (US$2.7 billion) as sales rose at the fastest pace since 2000. Revenue jumped 34 percent after Nokia shipped a record 133.5 million mobile phones in the quarter.
Foxconn may derive 48 percent of sales from Nokia this year, Bear Stearns Co's analyst Jack Tse wrote in a report yesterday. The Finnish company overtook Motorola Inc to become Foxconn's largest customer last year, Tse said.
BYD Electronic (International) Co, a supplier of mobile-phone parts to customers including Nokia, climbed 9.1 percent to HK$11, the largest gain this year. Nokia accounted for 76 percent of BYD Electronic's sales in last year's first half, the Chinese company said in the prospectus for its listing last month.
Powertech shares gain
Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技), the Taiwanese memory-chip packaging provider whose investors include Intel Corp, saw its shares make their biggest gain in Taipei trading in two-and-a-half years after Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) raised its estimates for this year.
Powertech shares climbed by the daily limit of 7 percent, their largest increase since July 19, 2005, to NT$91.80.
Yesterday Fubon raised its profit forecast for Powertech this year to NT$14.93 a share from NT$14.36, and increased its sales estimate to NT$31.84 billion from NT$31.64 billion. The revision came after Powertech posted a 23 percent increase in fourth-quarter profit to NT$1.78 billion from a year earlier in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
NT dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday advanced by NT$0.052 to trade at NT$32.30 against the greenback on turnover of US$932 million.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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