Apple suppliers boost TAIEX
The TAIEX got a boost yesterday from gains posted by companies in the Apple Inc supply chain on expectations that the US consumer electronics giant would report strong results for the quarter later in the day, dealers said.
However, turnover remained small amid lingering concerns over a possible tax on gains from stock investments, with selling shifting to old-economy stocks from the high-tech sector, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 17.75 points, or 0.24 percent, at 7,498.8, after moving between 7,444.74 and 7,533.55, on turnover of NT$68.37 billion (US$2.32 billion).
Firms bring billions from China
Taiwan’s listed firms with operations in China reported NT$161.1 billion in aggregate returns last year.
That figure was down 26.16 percent from the previous year, dragged down by wage increases and weakened demand attributable to the EU debt crises, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
Makers of electronics, computers and peripheral gadgets posted better earnings than firms in other sectors, the commission said.
A total of 1,046 firms have investments in China, 51 more than last year, and they account for 76.24 percent of all listed companies, the commission said.
Together, they remitted NT$116.4 billion to Taiwan last year, up NT$18 billion from a year earlier, but make up only 8.88 percent of overall capital bound for China at NT$1.31 trillion, it said.
Fubon workers given raises
Employees at Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation’s second-biggest financial holding company by assets, will receive pay raises of at least 3 percent this year, company chairman Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) said on Monday.
The size of the raise will depend on the individual’s performance, but it will surpass the 2 percent rise in inflation that the government is predicting this year he said.
China’s currency reserves fall
China’s foreign exchange reserves fell US$4.69 billion from February to last month, data from the People’s Bank of China showed yesterday.
It was the first decline since December last year, according to previously released data from the central bank.
China’s holdings, the world’s largest, rose in the first quarter to US$3.3 trillion from US$3.18 trillion at the end of last year.
Solar cell maker posts losses
E-Ton Solar Tech Co (益通光能), a Taiwan-based solar cell maker, said on Monday that it plans to make a private placement to raise up to NT$3 billion to improve its financial structure.
According to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, E-Ton had NT$5.46 billion in total debt at the end of last year, including NT$3.58 billion to be repaid within one year.
In the first quarter, E-Ton incurred NT$355 million in net losses, or a NT$0.74 loss per share, extending from NT$4.05 billion in net losses for the whole of last year, amid increasingly fierce competition in the world’s solar energy market.
EU concerns depress NT dollar
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar yesterday, edging down NT$0.002 to close at NT$29.526 as traders cut their local currency holdings due to a falling euro amid fresh concerns over the debt crisis in the eurozone, dealers said.
Turnover totaled US$569 million 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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts