TAIEX down on global growth
The TAIEX plunged yesterday amid escalating worries over global growth after South Korea unexpectedly cut its key interest rates to boost its economy, dealers said.
Many investors also appeared wary while waiting for China, the world’s second-largest economy, to release its second-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) today as the market fears that China will report a GDP increase of below 8 percent, they said.
The weighted index closed down 126.98 points, or 1.74 percent, at 7,130.93, on turnover of NT$70.63 billion (US$2.35 billion).
E-ink, Sharp make patent peace
Taiwan’s E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s largest electronic paper display supplier, signed a patent cross-licensing agreement yesterday with Japan’s Sharp Corp covering the use of thin-film-transfer and LCD technologies.
E Ink’s South Korean unit, Hydis Technologies Co, also signed a similar agreement with Sharp, allowing both parties to use certain parts of each others’ patented technologies in return for licensing fees, according to a statement from E Ink.
Within the 10-year term of validity, E Ink and Sharp will maintain a “patent peace” to prevent the companies and their customers from being affected by patent disputes. This will help both companies focus on the development of their businesses, the statement added.
TV panels down, notebooks up
Large panel shipments went down 1.9 percent to 63.22 million units last month from a month earlier, according to a report released yesterday by WitsView, a research division of TrendForce Corp (集邦科技).
The decline was attributed to Taiwanese panel makers’ adaptation of product strategies as well as inventory adjustments among downstream vendors, which were under pressure to issue financial reports for the first half.
TV panel shipments dropped by 7.3 percent month-on-month to 17.63 million units last month, while monitor panel shipments continued to exhibit a downward trend, dropping by 7 percent to 13.67 million units compared with the previous month, WitsView said. Notebook panel shipments recorded a 3.1 percent monthly increase to 17.59 million units.
Car sales see monthly growth
Car sales during the first 10 days of the month in Taiwan saw an annualized 49.1 percent growth and a 78.7 percent monthly surge to 6,347 units, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday.
The growth was attributed to promotions by car sellers that coincided with the mid-year hot season for car sales.
Market share of Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), a local agent of Japan-based Toyota Motor, reached a yearly high of 38.4 percent for the first 10 days of the month. The surge was due to the resolution of a two-day factory closure last month as a result of torrential rain, which postponed delivery of nearly 1,000 cars.
During the 10-day period, Hotai Motor sold 2,437 cars, 1.4 times more than in the same period last month and 1.12 times more than the previous year, the data showed.
NT dollar falls, US dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the greenback, down NT$0.039 to close at the day’s high of NT$30.013 as traders rushed to move their funds to the US dollar amid growing concerns over the global economy, dealers said.
It was the first time the US dollar rose above the NT$30 mark in more than one month.
Turnover totaled US$962 million yesterday.
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
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
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