TAIEX falls on Apple’s outlook
The TAIEX yesterday closed down 0.62 percent, or 48.19 points, to 7,695.99 as Apple Inc’s local component suppliers came under pressure after the US technology giant gave a cautious sales outlook for the current quarter, dealers said.
Turnover amounted to NT$73.19 billion (US$2.52 billion).
“Apple’s results dictated the market movement throughout the session, as many investors feared that weakening sales and profitability will impact Taiwanese suppliers’ bottom lines,” President Securities (統一證券) analyst Vickie Hsieh (謝雯霞) said.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which assembles iPhones and iPads for Apple, suffered the brunt, with its share price plunging 2.94 percent to NT$82.50.
Formosa bonus hits record low
The Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) yesterday said it planned to give out 2.83 months of salary as bonuses for its employees. The figure is a record low.
Formosa said last year was a tough period for the group, with net profits falling to their lowest level in 10 years as ethylene prices almost halved from 2011. The group made NT$16.2 billion in net income last year.
The group expects this year to be a slightly better period than last year, bolstered by an improving world economy.
HTC launches Desire U
Smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday launched a new smartphone named Desire U, a medium-range model of its popular Butterfly phone.
The mid-end smartphone runs on Google Inc’s Android operating system and is equipped with a 4-inch high-definition touch-screen display.
To promote sales ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, HTC said Desire U model would sell for NT$7,990. The phone is also available for NT$3,990 with a bundled service package from Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s biggest phone company. The package carries a minimum monthly fee of NT$291.
Wi-Fi Alliance opens branch
Wi-Fi Alliance, the global collaboration forum for Wi-Fi wireless technology, yesterday formally opened a branch office in Taiwan to provide certification and engineering support to its member companies throughout Asia.
The staff of the Taipei branch office will assist member companies with technical and certification policy information, and help them prepare products for certification testing at a Wi-Fi Alliance-authorized test laboratory.
“Taiwan has been a critical part of our industry since its inception and remains a key part of the industry’s future,” Wi-Fi Alliance president and CEO Edgar Figueroa said.
Minister upbeat on TIFA talks
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥) yesterday said that Taiwan and the US are in close discussions over a resumption of talks under the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA).
Shih told reporters that a formal announcement on the decision to resume TIFA talks would be made once the discussions have been completed.
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said upon his return from the US at the head of a Taiwanese delegation that attended US President Barack Obama’s inauguration that the “highly expected talks under the bilateral agreement should resume soon.”
NT dollar falls on intervention
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell by NT$0.046 to close at NT$29.138 against the US dollar as the central bank intervened to keep the local currency from overshooting, dealers said. Turnover was US$862 million.
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