TAIEX down on futures selling
The TAIEX closed lower yesterday on futures-led selling as foreign institutional investors had to settle large short-position contracts on the local futures market, dealers said.
Selling focused on select large-cap stocks, in particular in the electronics sector, amid lingering concerns over a rising New Taiwan dollar. Old economy stocks also pulled back as investors locked in gains they had posted in recent sessions, they said. The weighted index closed down 64.59 points, or 0.83 percent, at the day’s low of 7,700.43, on turnover of NT$83.44 billion (US$2.88 billion).
Unpaid leave figure drops
The number of workers on unpaid leave has decreased by more than 1,000 over the past two weeks, government statistics released yesterday showed.
The total number of furloughed workers was 3,217, employed by 49 companies, as of Tuesday, the Council of Labor Affairs said.
HTC phone tops Amazon list
HTC Corp’s (宏達電) new flagship smartphone has become the best-seller on Amazon.com Inc’s cellphone sales rankings in the US, beating the likes of products from archrival Samsung Electronics Co.
Launched on Nov. 14 through mobile operator Verizon Wireless, the 5-inch HTC Droid DNA topped Amazon’s ranking in the category of best-sellers in cellphones with service plans, while Samsung’s popular 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II and 4.8-inch Galaxy S III came in second and third respectively, Amazon said yesterday.
OLED TV sales to outpace UHDs
Shipments of OLED televisions are expected to outpace those of ultra-high-definition (UHD) TVs worldwide by 2015, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) predicted yesterday.
Global UHD TV shipments will total 500,000 units this year and an estimated 3.2 million units in 2015, compared with OLED TV shipments of 50,000 units this year and 3.24 million units in 2015, it said.
The gap will widen in 2017, when global OLED TV shipments are expected to top 10 million units, well above an estimated 5.95 million UHD TVs.
Currently, only South Korea’s LG Electronics Inc makes OLED TVs, while at least five companies, including Samsung Electronics Co, Japan’s Sharp Corp and Taiwan’s AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), produce UHD TVs.
Flat-panel R&D up 11.1%
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday that in the first three quarters of last year, four major flat-panel makers in Taiwan — Innolux Corp (群創光電), AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) and Hannstar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) — spent a total of NT$18 billion on research and development, up 11.1 percent from the same period last year.
The ministry said the increase in R&D spending was expected to boost the global competitiveness of the nation’s flat panel sector.
Kaohsiung has highest debt
Residents in Greater Kaohsiung continued to shoulder the heaviest debt burden in Taiwan as of the end of last month, the Ministry of Finance’s “Local Government Debt Clock” showed yesterday.
Its debt totaled NT$224.13 billion at the end of last month, translating into NT$80,700 in debt per capita, ministry data showed.
The Miaoli County Government placed second-highest on the list by posting NT$68,000 in debt per person, followed by Taipei, Yilan County and Hsinchu County.
NT dollar inches lower
The New Taiwan dollar closed lower against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.043 to close at NT$29.099.
Turnover totaled US$653 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