Ma’s remarks soothe investors
Share prices closed 0.32 percent higher yesterday as investors welcomed president-elect Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) assurance that he is committed to expanding trade ties with China, dealers said.
Ma’s comments eased worries triggered by the appointment of a pro-independence politician to head the Mainland Affairs Council, they said.
The weighted index closed up 28.18 points at 8,919.92, off a low of 8,882.57 and a high of 8,962.99. Turnover was NT$148.44 billion (US$4.87 billion).
Decliners outnumbered advancers 1,347 to 991, with 318 stocks unchanged. A total of 22 stocks closed limit-up, while 30 were limit-down.
Mediatek’s forecast is flat
Mediatek Inc (聯發科) said yesterday it expects its second-quarter profit margin to be flat from the first quarter.
The forecast came after Mediatek, which supplies chips for mobile phones, DVD players and flat-screen TVs, made a net profit of NT$4.03 billion in the first quarter.
Asustek Q1 income rises 7%
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) said yesterday that its first quarter net income rose 7 percent to NT$7.23 billion on robust sales for its laptop PCs and motherboards, higher than NT$6.73 billion a year ago and up from NT$6.43 billion in the fourth quarter.
The company predicted robust demand for its branded and low-cost notebook PCs in the second quarter. It forecast second-quarter shipments of 1.3 million to 1.4 million of its own Asus-branded notebook PCs, up 3 percent to 8 percent from the first quarter and a 60 percent rise from the year-ago period.
Asustek also forecast second-quarter shipments of 1.2 million to 1.3 million of its recently introduced low-cost line of Eee PCs, up 70 percent to 80 percent from the previous quarter.
SMIC stops DRAM production
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) said yesterday that it stopped making dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips in March.
The company plans to convert its production capacity for DRAM to more profitable logic chips used in mobile phones and digital cameras, chief executive Richard Chang (張汝京) said.
The DRAM market has been suffering its worst downturn since 2001, with the average spot price of mainstream DRAM chips plunging nearly 60 percent in the past year amid a supply glut.
Chang’s comments came after SMIC reported on Tuesday that it swung to a first-quarter net loss of US$119.1 million, reversing a net profit of US$8.8 million a year earlier.
Revenue for the three months that ended on March 31 fell 6.7 percent to US$362.4 million from US$388.3 million. SMIC said it expects revenue to fall another 3-6 percent in the second quarter compared with the first quarter.
CPC Corp to invest in Canada
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) plans to invest NT$24 billion in Canadian oil sands exploration and development as fuel demand increases.
The investment will be made over five years, the company said in a statement on its Web site on Tuesday, without naming potential partners in the project.
CPC, which has investments in oil and gas fields in Asia, Africa and Latin America, plans to more than double reserves in five years.
NT dollar dips
The New Taiwan dollar dropped against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.041 to close at NT$30.449. A total of US$1.346 billion changed hands during trading.
Staff writer, with agencies
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],”
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
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