Powerchip sales rebound
Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), the nation’s No. 2 computer memory-chip maker, yesterday said sales for last month rebounded almost 80 percent on recovering demand for its chips.
Powerchip’s sales for last month rose to NT$2.64 billion (US$80.4 million), up 79 percent from NT$1.48 billion in July. That represents an annual decline of about 48 percent as prices plunged on oversupply and sluggish demand.
Powerchip spokesman Eric Tang (譚仲民) said the company was increasing output to cope with a gradual recovery in PC sales.
Meanwhile, Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s top computer memory-chip manufacturer, said on Tuesday it planned to raise prices for mainstream DDR2 chips by 10 percent in October from September.
TAIEX run predicted for Q4
Taiwanese stocks are “positioned for a fourth-quarter run” as investors focus on a recovery in demand and a proposed tax on overseas earnings encourages citizens to repatriate funds, adding to liquidity, Deutsche Bank AG said.
Almost NT$100 billion of “retail money may get reallocated from offshore funds to onshore funds that are exposed to the TAIEX,” Deutsche Bank analyst Julian Wang wrote in a report yesterday.
NT$213 billion was withdrawn from time deposit accounts in the first half of the year and “most of it found its way into the equity market,” he said.
CPC inviting bids for bonds
State-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油), is inviting bids for NT$9 billion in bonds to help pay for investment.
The company plans to sell NT$5 billion in five-year notes, NT$2 billion in seven-year debt and NT$2 billion in 10-year securities, with the option to increase the total amount by as much as 30 percent, CPC vice president Lin Maw-wen (林茂文) said yesterday.
“We will use the money on investment,” Lin said.
The planned sale will be the refiner’s only bond issuance this year, he said.
CPC expects to spend NT$43.4 billion on fixed assets next year, according to the government’s draft budget for next year.
Projects include upgrades on refineries, construction of a petrochemical plant and development of a gas field off Taiwan, Lin said.
CPC and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), Taiwan’s only oil refiners, also have units that process naphtha, an oil product, into ethylene for making plastics and fibers.
NT dollar pares strong gain
The New Taiwan dollar weakened yesterday, paring its biggest daily gain in a month, on speculation declines in global stocks will prompt overseas investors to trim holdings of emerging-market assets. Bonds were little changed.
The NT dollar dropped last month on concern the central bank will cap appreciation to support exports, which have slumped for 11 straight months. The MSCI Asia-Pacific Index of regional shares slipped 1.5 percent today, the most in two weeks, after the Standard & Poor’s 500 index lost 2.2 percent yesterday.
The Taiwanese currency is “on the weaker side, in line with other Asian currencies,” said Suan Teck Kin, an economist in Singapore at United Overseas Bank Ltd. “The situation in terms of recovery is not yet entrenched.”
The currency fell 0.2 percent to NT$32.918 versus the greenback as of the 4pm close, according to Taipei Forex Inc. It rose 0.2 percent on Thursday, the most since Aug. 4.
Indonesia’s rupiah, the Philippine peso and Malaysia’s ringgit also weakened.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
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