Hon Hai revenues break record
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密), which makes iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc, yesterday posted record-high monthly revenues for last month on strong demand for consumer electronics.
Revenues increased 21.67 percent to NT$295.54 billion (US$9.77 billion) from NT$221.78 billion in September, according to an e-mailed statement. Compared to a year ago, revenues rose 17 percent from NT$242.91 billion.
Hon Hai earned NT$2.15 trillion in revenues in the first 10 months of this year, up 17 percent from NT$1.84 trillion in the same period last year.
HTC launches new smartphone
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s No. 4 smartphone maker, launched its 4.7-inch Sensation XL smartphone in Taiwan yesterday and said that two of its Android-powered products already support synchronization with rival Apple Inc’s iTunes music software.
Users of the HTC Sensation XL and the HTC Rhyme can download the HTC Sync application to their personal computers, which will automatically detect iTunes or Windows Media Player to copy media files such as music, pictures and contacts to their phones.
This is the first time HTC has allowed its products to synchronize with software from Apple.
Acer, Compal revenues fall
Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s No. 4 PC brand, yesterday posted NT$36.42 billion in unconsolidated revenues last month, dropping 8.9 percent month-on-month and a decline of 2.63 percent year-on-year amid lackluster PC shipments.
Sales for the first 10 months fell 24.55 percent year-on-year to NT$336.92 billion, according to a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing.
Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world’s No. 2 contract maker of laptop PCs, posted revenues of NT$56.2 billion last month, up 4 percent from the prior month, but dipped 27 percent from the same month last year.
Total revenues for the first 10 months plunged 23 percent from last year to NT$554.67 billion.
Chinatrust to bank in China
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) said yesterday its banking arm, Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中信銀行), has won approval from China to set up a branch in Shanghai, allowing the nation’s top credit-card issuer to expand there.
Chinatrust Financial said it first aimed to establish a subsidiary to facilitate the expansion, but made strategy adjustments in July to meet Chinese regulatory requirements.
The approval made Chinatrust Bank the seventh Taiwanese lender to secure a footing in China.
Taishin names new president
Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) named Joseph Jao (饒世湛), a former president of East West Bank (China) Ltd, its new president, the Taipei-based lender said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
Jao succeeds Chen Long-zheng (陳龍政), who was appointed acting president after Lin Keh-hsiao (林克孝) died in a mountain climbing accident in August.
Tax income beats expectations
The nation’s tax revenues increased 15.6 percent from a year earlier to NT$108.9 billion last month as more corporate income tax revenues were submitted, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
That brought accumulated tax revenues up 10.6 percent compared with the same period last year at NT$1.486 trillion for the first 10 months, the second-highest level in history, ministry statistics showed.
“In terms of current data, we expect tax revenues for this year to grow higher than expected, by about NT$55 billion to NT$60 billion,” said Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳), deputy director of the ministry’s statistics department.
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