Lenovo seeks to diversify
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), China’s biggest maker of personal computers, aims to develop smartphone applications in-house as it seeks to win market share from Apple Inc, chairman Liu Chuanzhi (柳傳志) said.
“Besides hardware, there is the software content we also must think about,” Liu told the Netrepreneur Summit in Hangzhou, China. “We must move in this direction because the market for handsets is very competitive.”
Lenovo, maker of Thinkpad laptops, is diversifying in a quest to boost revenue. Last month the company said it plans to sell a game console in China by the end of this year. It started selling the LePhone smartphone on China’s domestic market in May.
Taiwan Cement secures loan
Taiwan Cement Corp (台泥) received a HK$1.92 billion (US$250 million), three-year loan to refinance debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The term facility is guaranteed by Hong Kong Cement Ltd and was organized by a group of five banks.
Central bank issues CDs
Taiwan’s central bank issued NT$327.1 billion in certificates of deposit (CDs) yesterday, more than the NT$291.2 billion that matured, the monetary authority said in a statement on its Web site.
The Central Bank sold 30-day certificates at 0.63 percent and 91-day at 0.67 percent, and 182-day at 0.77 percent, according to an official statement.
Yulon surges in China
Yulon Group (裕隆集團), the nation’s largest automaker, is expected to see mass vehicle production from its latest venture in China ahead of schedule, according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News.
The company announced early last month that it would set up a joint venture called Dongfeng Yulon (東風裕隆), along with Dongfeng Automobile Co (東風汽車), China’s fourth-largest automaker, to produce Yulon’s first own-brand minivan “Luxgen.”
The first-phase facilities would be completed in the first quarter, instead of the planned for fourth quarter next year, the paper said.
The venture has also begun looking for distributors in China, and is expected to work with more than 100 partners to showcase and sell Luxgen vehicles when mass production starts in the first quarter.
Both Yulon and Dongfeng hold a 50 percent stake in the venture — which cost an initial investment of 1.55 billion yuan (US$229 million) and is located in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
UMC buys equipment
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-biggest contract chipmaker, bought NT$687 million of equipment from Tokyo Electron Ltd between Aug. 9 and Sept. 13, the Hsinchu-based company said in a statement to the stock exchange on yesterday.
TAITRA aims offer at SMEs
Small and medium-sized exporters that sign up for or renew Taiwantrade Web site membership will be offered discounted Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) accreditation, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 貿協) said yesterday.
TAITRA, Taiwan’s largest nonprofit trade promotion organization, signed a deal yesterday that will offer the next 3,000 new or renewed members Data Universal Numbering System logos from D&B, the world’s biggest provider of business credit services, for NT$3,000. The usual fee is NT$16,800, TAITRA said.
NT dollar up against greenback
The NT dollar rose against its US counterpart yesterday, up NT$0.06 to close at NT$31.850.
Turnover totaled US$806 million during the trading session.
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
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
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],”