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.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained