Mobile devices with cloud computing capabilities will drive the technology industry in the coming years and enhance business productivity, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) said yesterday.
In an interview with the Chinese-language Economic Daily News, Chang said Apple Inc’s iPhone and iPad have drawn business away from the PC market, leading to a slowdown of sales in the PC sector that had been responsible for driving the fast growth of the semiconductor industry during the past 30 years.
With the development of cloud computing, there will be mobile devices lighter than current smartphones and tablets that would be able to access large amounts of Internet data anywhere and at anytime, he said.
This will provide more opportunities for the semiconductor industry in the next decade, Chang added.
According to Chang, the revolution brought about by personal computers was aimed at improving corporate productivity, while the revolution driven by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs focused on improving the quality of people’s lives and increasing the convenience of social networking.
However, the technology industry will face large changes as cloud computing gains popularity, allowing people to save and retrieve data from data servers, he said.
Once cloud computing technology matures, tablets will replace personal computers as the main device for greater corporate productivity, he added.
TSMC is the world’s largest contract chipmaker. The company has a market value of almost NT$2 trillion (US$66 billion), leading all other Taiwanese companies.
TSMC’s customers include leading semiconductor component suppliers for smartphones and tablet PCs.
Chang has forecast that during the next 10 years TSMC will post a compound annual net profit growth rate of 10 percent, with its shareholders’ average return on equity exceeding 20 percent.
TSMC is planning large investments in capital expenditure and research and development to cement its leadership in a changing industrial environment, he said.
Chang also forecast that the output value of the semiconductor industry would grow at an average rate of between 3 percent and 5 percent in the next decade, indicating growth in profits of less than 3 percent to 5 percent.
The share price of TSMC fell 1.06 percent to close at NT$75 yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, where the benchmark TAIEX dropped 1.69 percent. The stock rose 6.76 percent last year, compared with the TAIEX’s 21.18 percent decline, according to the stock exchange’s data.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last