CREDIT
Formosa ratings steady
Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) said yesterday credit ratings for the four core companies of the conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) were not immediately affected by the fire that broke out earlier last week at the group’s complex in Mailiao (麥寮), Yunlin County. According to the ratings agency, Formosa Plastics has sufficiently diversified its business and stocked up on inventory, so it should be able to weather the impact of the fire for now. The four core units of the group are Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化). All four units are rated “twAA-” by the agency for their long-term debt and “twA-1+” for their short-term credit with a stable outlook.
SPORTSWEAR
Yao Ming sues over name
Chinese news reports say that injured NBA all-star Yao Ming (姚明) has sued a sportswear maker for allegedly using his name and logo to sell its products. The Xinhua News Agency reported late on Friday that Yao had sued Wuhan Yunhe Sharks Sportswear Co (武漢雲鶴大鯊魚體育用品公司) for using his name and logo, “Yao Ming Era,” on its shoes. It said the lawsuit was filed in Wuhan, Hubei Province. The Houston Rockets center, who has a licensing agreement with Reebok, is currently recovering from a possible career-threatening ankle injury.
INTERNET
Blogger back in action
Google’s Blogger was back up on Friday after suffering an outage that knocked the blogging platform used by millions offline for over 20 hours. “We’re very sorry that you’ve been unable to publish to Blogger for the past 20.5 hours,” Blogger manager Eddie Kessler said in a post on the Blogger Buzz blog. “We use Blogger for our own blogs, so we’ve also felt your pain.” The outage was because of data corruption during scheduled maintenance work on Wednesday night, he said. Blogger is one of the world’s most popular blogging platforms and has millions of active blogs.
INTERNET
Amazon unit used by hackers
Amazon.com Inc’s Web Services cloud computing unit was used by hackers in last month’s attack against Sony Corp’s online entertainment systems, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Hackers using an alias signed up to rent a server through Amazon’s EC2 service and launched the attack from there, said the person, who requested anonymity. The account has been shut down, the person said. The development sheds light on how hackers used the so-called cloud to carry out the second-biggest online theft of personal information to date. The breach at Amazon is likely to call attention to concerns some businesses have voiced over the security of computing services delivered via others’ remote servers, referred to as cloud computing.
TECHNOLOGY
App trademarks challenged
Microsoft Corp and Nokia Oyj are among four technology companies challenging Apple Inc’s EU-wide trademarks for “Appstore” and “App Store.” Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, Microsoft, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB and HTC Corp (宏達電) all filed separate requests on Thursday with the EU trademark agency in Alicante, Spain, seeking to invalidate Apple’s trademark rights. Apple’s App Store, started in 2008, offers downloads of programs from the company and third-party developers.
HSBC Holdings PLC is deepening its commitment to Taiwan as the economy emerges as one of the bank’s fastest-growing markets globally, driven by an artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom, expanding cross-border trade, and rising wealth creation. “The advantage that Taiwan has is a growth story linked to the semiconductor and broader AI industries, strong underlying corporate performance, and wealth creation,” said Surendra Rosha, HSBC’s co-chief executive for Asia and the Middle East, in an exclusive interview with the Taipei Times on June 2, during this year’s HSBC Taiwan Conference. That combination has helped HSBC cement its position as the most profitable international
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell sharply against the US dollar to close at its lowest level since May 22 amid a massive outflow of funds from the country because of investors panicking over global equity markets. The NT dollar ended at NT$31.580 against the US dollar, slightly lower than its close of NT$31.568 on May 22, after moving between NT$31.5 and NT$31.648 on combined turnover of US$3.062 billion on the Taipei Foreign Exchange and the Cosmos Foreign Exchange. The NT dollar received a significant hit in the morning session, slumping as much as NT$0.173 at a time when other Asian currencies
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is now ranked ninth among the world’s 100 most valuable companies after its market capitalization more than doubled over the past year, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan said in a report last month. TSMC’s market capitalization surged 101 percent year-on-year to US$1.427 trillion as of March 31, the accounting and consulting firm’s 2026 Global Top 100 Companies by Market Capitalization report said. The gain catapulted the world’s largest contract chipmaker from 12th place to ninth in the rankings, and it was the fastest-growing among the global top 10, it said. TSMC was the only Taiwanese company among the top
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported record revenue of NT$416.975 billion (US$13.17 billion) for last month, putting the world’s largest contract chipmaker on track to set a record for quarterly revenue. Last month’s figure surpassed March’s record NT$415.19 billion and represented increases of 1.5 percent from April and 30.1 percent from a year earlier. For the first five months of the year, TSMC generated NT$1.96 trillion in revenue, up 30 percent year-on-year, it said in a statement. TSMC has forecast second-quarter revenue of between US$39 billion and US$40.2 billion, representing sequential growth of about 10 percent and year-on-year growth of about
RSS