No date for energy price hikes
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is mulling plans to increase electricity prices, but has no timetable for doing so, Bureau of Energy Deputy Director-General Wang Yunn-ming (王運銘) said yesterday.
The issue was raised after Taiwan Research Institute (台灣綜合研究院) president Wu Tsai-yi (吳再益), who is also an independent board member of Taiwan Power Co (台電), said on Monday that the ministry was considering raising electricity prices twice this year, which would result in an overall 20 percent hike.
The proposal has been submitted to the Cabinet for approval, Wu was quoted as saying in local media.
The last electricity price increase was in October 2008.
Local server shipments stall
Shipments of servers in Taiwan slumped 12.8 percent year-on-year to 19,608 units in the fourth quarter of last year, as a weak macroeconomy prompted corporation curtailed IT spending and because of short supply of hard-disc drivers, market researcher IDC said in a report yesterday.
Compared with the third quarter, shipments rose 7.4 percent, IDC said.
Total revenues, however, grew 0.2 percent annually to US$91.02 million last quarter as government agencies and telecoms companies purchased more medium and high-end servers, it said.
“Global economic weakness and short supply of hard disc supply will continue to overshadow Taiwan’s server market in the first half of 2012,” IDC analyst Leon Kao (高振偉) said in the report.
Hewlett-Packard, Dell and IBM were the top three suppliers of mainstream x86 severs, while local brands Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) and Acer Inc (宏碁) ranked No. 4 and No. 5 respectively, the report showed.
TPK board approves payouts
TPK Holdings Co Ltd (宸鴻), which supplies touch modules to Apple Inc, yesterday said its board approved the delivery of NT$20 per share in cash dividends and NT$3 per share in stock dividends to its shareholders.
That represented a 50-percent payout ratio based on last year’s net income of NT$11.34 billion (US$384 million), or NT$46.12 a share.
The board also agreed to allocate NT$628 million in employee bonuses and NT$69.63 million in compensation for board members. The decision still needs shareholder approval in its annual meeting on May 16.
Powerchip grace period goes on
Memorychip maker Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技) said yesterday its creditor banks had agreed to extend the grace period for debt repayments for another year, a stock exchange filing showed.
The Hsinchu-based company owes five syndicated loans valued at NT$46.6 billion, held by most domestic and foreign banks in Taiwan.
Acer posts sales increase
Acer Inc, one of the world’s leading personal computer vendors, reported on Monday its unconsolidated sales increased 38 percent from a month earlier to NT$37.54 billion last month, and the figures were up 34 percent from the previous year.
In the first two months of this year, the firm’s unconsolidated sales totaled NT$64.74 billion, up 5.41 percent.
NT dollar up on TAIEX rebound
The New Taiwan dollar increased against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.034 to close at NT$29.528, as the local bourse rebounded, lifting demand for the local currency, dealers said.
Turnover totaled US$720 million during the trading session.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six