Eurozone hampers market
The stock market pulled back yesterday as the European Central Bank (ECB) failed to meet market expectations to come up with concrete measures to take on the eurozone’s debt problems, dealers said.
Select large-cap technology stocks encountered heavier downward pressure, led by Hon Hai Precision Industry (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, amid lingering concerns over weakening global demand, they said.
The weighted index closed down 50.45 points, or 0.69 percent, at 7,217.51, on turnover of NT$77.79 billion (US$2.59 billion).
DRAM firms’ sales mixed
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the nation’s top DRAM chipmaker, yesterday said last month’s revenue fell 21.2 percent to NT$2.58 billion, compared with NT$3.27 billion in June, on dwindling end demand for PCs.
Shipments slipped 15 percent and average sales prices dropped 3 percent to 5 percent month-on-month, the chipmaker said.
On an annual basis, revenue grew 9.8 percent from NT$2.35 billion.
Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), a DRAM chip joint venture between Nanya and US memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, also saw revenue decrease 7.2 percent month-on-month to NT$3.04 billion last month from NT$3.27 billion in June. That was a 2 percent growth from NT$2.98 billion a year ago.
However, memory chipmaker Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技), said that its revenue grew by 2.9 percent last month to NT$2.72 billion, compared with the NT$2.64 billion seen in the prior month, supported by growing contract chip-making business.
That was a 30 percent contraction from NT$3.91 billion a year ago.
Wintek shares move upwards
Shares of touch panel maker Wintek Corp (勝華) bucked the downtrend of the broader market yesterday, closing higher after the company reported a more than 60 percent increase in sales for last month, dealers said.
The revenue increase prompted many bargain hunters to take advantage of the stock’s relatively low valuation after recent consolidation, but investors have been advised to keep a close eye on price competition in the global touch panel industry, dealers said.
Shares of Wintek rose 7 percent, the maximum daily increase, to close at NT$14.30, with 68.37 million shares changing hands.
EU urges to keep wages down
Taiwan should take into consideration its competitiveness as an investment destination when it is mulling a minimum wage increase, the European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) has advised.
“It is for the government to set an appropriate level for the minimum wage,” ECCT president Chris James said on Thursday.
“However, in setting the rate the government should take into account the need for Taiwan to compete with other countries in the region for investment,” he added.
Council of Labor Affairs Minister Wang Ju-hsuan (王如玄) has said on several occasions over the past month that her office plans to raise the minimum hourly wage by about 11 percent, from NT$103 to NT$115.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar declined against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.014 to close at NT$30.002 as the local currency followed a weakening euro to move lower against the greenback, dealers said.
Turnover totaled US$663 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
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],”
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
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