TAIEX snaps four-day streak
The stock market yesterday snapped a four-day winning streak to close 0.79 percent lower, a day after the TAIEX index reached 8,121.78, its highest since Jan. 24.
The weighted index fell 64.18 points to close at 8,057.6 following overnight losses on Wall Street.
The local bourse opened at 8,106 and fluctuated between 8,149.68 and 8,038.37 during the day’s trading. Market turnover totaled NT$146.57 billion (US$4.63 billion).
Inotera eyes syndicated loan
Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), the nation’s second-largest memory-chip maker, expects to sign a NT$35 billion (US$1.1 billion) syndicated loan to fund equipment purchases within six weeks.
Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀) will lead the syndicate for the five-year loan, which will carry an interest rate “in line” with the company’s average cost of debt of about 2 percent, Kai Strohbecke, vice president of finance at the Taoyuan-based chipmaker, said in a phone interview yesterday, without providing the exact figure.
He didn’t name the other banks or say how many are involved.
Inotera is raising money to fund an estimated NT$52 billion of equipment purchases this year as it upgrades factories to 50-nanometer technology amid a rebound in the market for memory chips used in computers. The company in February raised NT$14.4 billion in a rights offering, Strohbecke said.
Chipbond share sale approved
Chipbond Technology Corp’s (頎邦科技) board approved a plan to sell up to 50 million shares in a private placement, the Hsinchu-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
Chipbond is the nation’s largest LCD driver chip packaging and testing firm. It plans to use the proceeds to expand production, increase working capital and invite a strategic partner, according to the statement.
UMC revenues shoot up
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday its revenue more than doubled to NT$9.48 billion last month from NT$4.54 billion a year earlier.
UMC said in a statement its first-quarter revenue also more than doubled to NT$26.72 billion from NT$10.84 billion a year earlier, but fell 3.7 percent from NT$27.75 billion in the previous quarter.
Fubon Financial income rises
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation’s second-largest listed financial-services company, reported first-quarter net income of NT$5.87 billion, or NT$0.72 per share, it said in an exchange filing yesterday, citing unaudited figures.
The company posted net income of NT$2.24 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Lite-On’s March revenue up
Local electronic component maker Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技) yesterday reported a consolidated revenue of NT$10.76 billion for last month, up 26 percent month-on-month and 46 percent year-on-year, hitting a record monthly high.
Lite-On attributed the growth to the company’s ongoing market share expansion, coupled with rising demand, according to a company statement.
In the first quarter, its consolidated revenue totaled NT$28.7 billion, up 47 percent from a year ago and representing the best quarterly result in six quarters, the statement said.
NT dollar inches lower
The NT dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.073 to close at NT$31.701. Turnover was US$886 million.
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