Gas, diesel prices to drop
Domestic gasoline and diesel prices will be lowered by NT$1.3 and NT$1.4 per liter respectively, effective today, state-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) announced yesterday.
CPC aligns its oil prices by using energy information provider Platt’s reports on average petroleum prices from Dubai and Brent with a 70 percent and 30 percent allocation, the oil giant disclosed.
After the adjustment, CPC’s price for a liter of 98-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$23.9, 95-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$22.4 and 92-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$21.7. Diesel will be priced at NT$18.5.
UMC surges on speculation
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-largest maker of custom chips, surged by the daily limit in Taipei trading on speculation that the company may acquire Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd (特許)
UMC climbed 6.9 percent to close at NT$8.35 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, after its US-traded shares jumped 39 percent overnight.
“There has been lots of speculation in the market” about an acquisition, said Kenneth Lee (李克揚), a technology analyst at Primasia Securities Ltd in Taipei. “It’s quite possible that United Microelectronics will buy Charter, given its strong cash flow.”
The Hsinchu-based chipmaker reported that it had NT$25.2 billion (US$761 million) in cash and equivalents as of Sept. 30, compared with NT$25.4 billion at the end of June.
“We don’t comment on rumors,” Alex Hinnawi, a spokesman at UMC said.
Asian exports set for big drop
Exports from Asia’s developing economies may decline 20 percent over the next year as a deepening global slowdown hurts demand for the region’s products, Nomura International (HK) Ltd said.
“In September 2008, aggregate exports for Asia ex-Japan grew by 21 percent year-on-year,” Robert Subbaraman, an economist at Nomura in Hong Kong, wrote in a report on Thursday. “In 12 months time, we would not be surprised if the number is about the same, but with a negative sign in front of it.”
Exports from Asia’s emerging economies have held up until recently, as shipments to other destinations made up for weaker sales to the US. That’s changing as the economic downturn becomes “global and synchronized,” and a slump in commodity prices erodes incomes in oil-producing nations, Subbaraman said.
Phone targets young children
Samsung Electronics Co launched a cellphone for children under 10 years old yesterday.
Available in six colors, and made of recyclable and biodegradable plastic, Samsung Tobi is made for environmentally conscious children who value function as well as aesthetics.
Samsung has built in various safety functions such as SOS Call, SOS Message and Fake Call Samsung Tobi to appeal to parents with young children.
“Using these safety features, users can be directly linked to their family members and friends in emergency situations and escape from dangerous situations. With Samsung Tobi, parents are always assured that their children are equipped with safety tools to keep them as secure as possible,” the company said.
Tobi is availabe in Italy and the UK, and will be in Taiwanese stores before the end of this year.
NT dollar closes higher
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.098 to close at NT$33.079. A total of US$725 million changed hands during the day’s trading.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the