Fears push shares lower
Share prices closed 0.42 percent lower yesterday as investors stayed on the sidelines amid continued worries over the health of the economy.
The weighted index dropped 28.4 points to 6,690.75 on turnover of NT$78.63 billion (US$2.4 billion).
Losers outnumbered gainers 1,361 to 834, while 228 stocks remained unchanged.
The market opened low and stayed in negative territory during most of the trading session despite some bargain-hunting in construction and asset-related plays, analysts said.
“Investors were reluctant to build up portfolios” due to a lack of positive leads, said Allen Lin of Concord Securities (康和證券).
The reluctance also accounted for the continued decline in trading volume over recent weeks, he said, adding that if the trend continues, the market may test 6,100 points next month.
Biotech shares dropped by 2.35 percent on profit-taking. Yung Shin Pharmaceutical Co (永信藥品) dropped 4.5 percent to NT$37.8 and Phyto Health fell 4.82 percent to NT$49.4.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) was 0.3 percent lower at NT$58.8 while United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) lost 1.82 percent at NT$13.45.
Acer posts 20% drop in profit
Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s third-largest computer supplier, posted a 20 percent drop in second-quarter profit after the company lacked one-time gains posted a year earlier.
Net income declined to NT$2.34 billion (US$71 million) from NT$2.93 billion a year earlier, the Taipei-based firm said yesterday.
The computer maker increased shipments of its low-cost Aspire One notebooks, which helped it grab market share from bigger rival Dell Inc amid the global recession. The release of the higher-priced Timeline, Acer’s long-battery-life laptop, may help the company boost revenue in the second half as the world economy recovers.
“Despite a tough economy, Acer’s product strategy enables it to continue to gain market share,” Patty Liu, an analyst who rates the company as “buy” at BNP Paribas in Taipei, wrote in a report on Tuesday. “Strength in China, share gains in the US and recovery of Europe PC demand are key drivers for stronger second-half growth.”
The profit was in line with the NT$2.34 billion median of 13 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Revenue in the second quarter fell 4.6 percent to NT$119 billion, while operating profit, or sales less the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, climbed 12 percent to NT$3.04 billion.
iPhone lite to hit China
China Unicom (中國聯通) and computer giant Apple are to announce plans by the end of the week to sell a stripped-down iPhone without Wi-Fi in China, the world’s biggest mobile market, local media said yesterday.
The two companies reached an agreement on major issues including prices and order volumes, Caijing magazine reported on its Web site, citing an unnamed source close to the negotiations.
The 8 gigabyte and 16 gigabyte iPhones could be sold as early as next month, with their wireless Internet functions disabled in compliance with a Chinese ban on the device, the report said.
The iPhone is likely to be priced from 2,999 yuan (US$439), with a requirement that customers also buy 3,000 yuan worth of pre-paid calls, the report said.
Chunghwa buys big from Nokia
Chunghwa Telecom Co, Taiwan’s biggest phone company, bought NT$3.1 billion (US$94 million) in third-generation equipment from Nokia Siemens Networks, the Taipei-based firm said in an exchange filing.
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