Central bank sells more CDs
The central bank yesterday auctioned another NT$100 billion (US$3.31 billion) in 364-day certificates of deposit (CD), marking its eighth sales of the CDs this year, as it continued to absorb excess funds in the banking system.
These eight sales of CDs with a total value of NT$800 billion would be tantamount to hiking the reserve requirement ratio by 3.11 percentage points, the central bank said in a statement.
Yesterday’s CD auction yielded an average interest rate of 0.688 percent, with a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.42 times. That compared with an average interest rate of 0.715 percent on the sales on Oct. 8, which had a bid-to-cover ratio of 3.22 times.
Hopax signs syndicated loan
Taiwan Hopax Chemicals Manufacturing Co (台灣聚和化學工業) has signed a NT$960 million five-year syndicated loan with nine banks, including Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀), the Kaohsiung-based company said in a statement to the local stock exchange yesterday.
The funds will be used to repay bank debts and to replenish midterm working capital, it said.
Walsin Lihwa selling GDRs
Walsin Lihwa Corp (華新麗華) is selling 53.96 million global depositary receipts (GDR) at US$5.38 each to raise US$290 million, the electric wire and cable maker said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Proceeds will be used to buy raw materials overseas and for the construction of a factory, the Taipei-based company said.
Each GDR represents 10 common shares, it said.
Bank forecasts China rate hike
Standard Chartered Bank forecast an increase in China’s interest rates before the end of the year, with the key one-year lending rate rising to 5.81 percent from 5.56 percent. The government wants to limit property-market risks, the bank said in an e-mailed report.
Chip demand to rise: SIA
Global demand for computer chips is forecast to grow moderately next year and in 2012 after a rapid sales increase this year, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing the Semiconductor Industry Association’s (SIA) estimate made on Thursday.
The SIA predicted chip sales would grow 6 percent to US$318.7 billion next year and increase 3.4 percent to US$329.7 billion in 2012, after growth of 32.8 percent to a record US$300.5 billion this year, the newspaper said.
Smartphone sales jump: IDC
Smartphone sales grew 89.5 percent in the third quarter, with Samsung Electronics Co showing the biggest growth among the top five vendors, IDC said in a report.
Samsung smartphone shipments grew more than fivefold, boosted by its new Galaxy S smartphone line, IDC said in a statement.
Industry sales gained to 81.1 million units, outpacing first-half growth, and the researcher said it expected smartphones to account for more than 20 percent of all devices by the end of the year.
Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, held on to the top spot in smartphones with a 32.7 percent market share — almost twice as big as second-placed Apple Inc, maker of the iPhone.
Research in Motion Ltd, Samsung and HTC Corp (宏達電) rounded out the top five slots.
“Increasingly, users look to smartphones as their next devices, while carriers have broadened selection and offered generous subsidies,” analyst Ramon Llamas wrote in the report.
The overall mobile phone market grew 14.6 percent in the third quarter to 340.5 million units, IDC said in a report last week.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts