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.
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