TAIEX rises 0.1 percent
The TAIEX recovered from early losses yesterday as investors rushed to take advantage of low valuations of select large-cap stocks after the market plunged in the previous session amid concerns over the debt problem in Europe, dealers said.
The index rose 9.10 points, or 0.1 percent, to 8,756.61 points, after moving between 8,673.38 and 8,756.90, on turnover of NT$91.96 billion (US$3.18 billion).
Wintel mobile device lead falls
Intel and Microsoft can expect to see their share of the global market for mobile devices drop to about 27 percent in 2014 in the face of competition from Google and Apple, market researcher International Data Center (IDC) analyst Bob O’Donnel said yesterday.
Last year, half of the world’s mobile devices including laptops were powered by Intel’s chips and ran Microsoft’s Windows operating systems.
Helped by the rise of smartphones and tablet devices, Google’s Android system along with ARM’s chip platform will power 25 percent of the 1.47 billion mobile devices shipped in 2014, up from 11 percent last year, IDC said.
Apple Inc, which runs its own iOS operating system on its products, would also see its share expand from 12 percent to 14 percent, IDC said.
Barclays sees production spurt
Barclays Capital said yesterday it expects Taiwan’s industrial production to grow stronger over the next two months after output expanded 6.9 percent year-on-year last month, below Barclays’ expected 14 percent.
Industrial production is likely to bounce back from this month amid the continuing uptrend in the electronics cycle, with the production of electronic components and PC products contributing over half of total growth, Barclays said, citing the ramp-up in the production of electronics devices equipped with Intel Corp’s Sandy Bridge chipset.
Tainan firms seek listing
LED chipmaker Epileds Technologies Inc (光鈜科技) and pharmaceutical manufacturer ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd (台灣神隆) submitted applications to list their shares on the nation’s main bourse, Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp said in a press release yesterday.
Epileds, with NT$903 million in share capital, made NT$248 million in pre-tax profits last year. ScinoPharm made NT$1.19 billion in pre-tax profits last year. ScinoPharm has NT$6.1 billion in share capital. Both companies are based in Tainan.
ProMOS approves plant sale
Local DRAM chipmaker ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) said its board had approved the sale of a Chinese plant to a unit of state-owned Aviation Industry Corp of China (中國航空工業集團) for 100 million yuan (NT$445.47 million), the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Monday.
ProMOS’ Chinese subsidiary, located in Chongqing, Sichuan Province, produces less than 10,000 8-inch wafers a month. The Chongqing subsidiary lost 372 million yuan last year, according to the filing.
The deal requires final approval from the Chinese government.
NT dollar up against US dollar
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.079 to close at NT$28.930, reflecting the strength of other Asian currencies in the region, dealers said.
Intervention of the local central bank in late trading to slow down the appreciation of the Taiwan dollar helped the US currency recoup part of its earlier losses, they said.
Turnover totaled US$907 billion during the trading session.
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],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day