TAIEX closes above 7,700
The TAIEX closed above the 7,700 point mark as buying in select large-cap stocks, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), continued to push the index higher, dealers said yesterday.
TSMC rose 2.51 percent to close at NT$89.8, while Hon Hai rose 2 percent to end at NT$92.
Certain China concept stocks, in particular retailers with close business ties with China, also attracted buying on hopes that Beijing will come up with stimulus measures to boost domestic demand, they said.
Among the winning China concept stocks, department store operator Grand Ocean Retail Group (大洋) rose 1.61 percent to close at NT$94.50, and convenience store operator Taiwan FamilyMart (全家) added 1.74 percent to end at NT$146.50.
At the end of the session, the weighted index closed up 31.36 points, or 0.41 percent, at 7,715.16, after moving between 7,665.35 and 7,721.29, on turnover of NT$86.04 billion (US$2.94 billion).
Hon Hai buys flat-panel patents
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密), which makes iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc, yesterday said it had obtained some patents related to flat-panel manufacturing from NEC Corp for ¥9.45 billion via its subsidiary, according to a company statement filed to the Taiwan Exchange Corp.
The acquisition is part of the company’s efforts to expand its coverage of flat-panel patents and develop technologies to make high-definition panels, spokesman Simon Hsng (邢治平) said.
Cellphone shipments to rise
Global shipments of mobile phones is to increase 4.49 percent to 1.86 billion units next year as more smartphones are launched worldwide, the Topology Research Institute (拓璞產業研究所) said in a recent statement.
In the smartphone segment, shipments are likely to increase by an annual 26.47 percent to 860 million units next year, with a penetration rate of 46.2 percent, the Taipei-based institute predicted.
Increasing demand in the Chinese market is the main driver of the growth in smartphone shipments, with shipments likely to rise 36.2 percent to 256 million units next year from 188 million units this year, Kelly Hsieh (謝雨珊), an associate manager at the institute, said in the statement.
Indian state plans ‘Taiwan City’
The government of Karnataka state in southwest India is planning to build a “Taiwan City” with advanced infrastructure in Bangalore to solicit Taiwanese investment, the Mumbai-headquartered Daily News & Analysis reported on Thursday.
The newspaper cited Murugesh R. Nirani, Karnataka’s minister for large and medium-scale industries, as saying that the state government is also preparing to construct facilities in second-tier cities to facilitate future investment by Taiwanese companies.
Nirani said the state is committed to providing opportunities for Taiwanese companies to invest in areas like hardware, networking, LED manufacturing, research and technology, human resources and skills development.
NT dollar rises against US dollar
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the greenback yesterday, adding NT$0.078 to close at NT$29.342 as traders took cues from a rising euro to boost their holdings in the local currency, dealers said.
The strength of the Chinese yuan also encouraged traders to buy into the NT dollar on expectations that China will soon come up with more stimulus policies to boost its economy, they added.
Turnover totalled US$758 million during the trading session.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by