Fed fears drag TAIEX lower
The TAIEX lost ground yesterday, ending below the key 8,000-point level as investors took cues from a weakening Wall Street overnight amid fears that the US Federal Reserve is planning to scale back its liquidity easing measures, dealers said.
The weighted index closed down 71.64 points, or 0.89 percent, at 7,957.46 on turnover of NT$77.59 billion (US$2.62 billion).
Acer to unveil new phones
Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s fourth-largest PC vendor, on Wednesday said it plans to unveil three new Android smartphone models at the upcoming Mobile World Congress, which begins in Barcelona, Spain, on Monday.
Acer said the new smartphones are the Liquid C1, powered by Intel Corp’s Atom chip, a dual SIM card slot Liquid E1 and an entry-level Liquid Z2.
The Liquid C1 is a high-end model made to meet office workers’ needs by allowing them to modify documents on a high-speed processor, the mid-tier Liquid E1 features a dual-speaker sound system and a “zero shutter delay” camera, while the entry-level Liquid Z2 is designed to help beginners get used to the smartphone experience, the firm said.
Acer said the new models would go on sale in the first quarter.
Amazon UK to sell HTC One
Online retailer Amazon.com Inc’s UK Web site says that the firm will start selling Taiwanese firm HTC Corp’s (宏達電) new flagship smartphone, the HTC One, next month.
Amazon put up an HTC One pre-order page yesterday, listing the new device, due to go on sale on March 15, at a price of £519.99 (US$792.46).
The price is higher than that of its predecessor, the One X, which was priced at £490 when it went on sale on Amazon in April last year.
HTC said the phone would go on sale globally next month through more than 185 telecoms operators.
Daikure begins work on plant
Japanese heat exchanger maker Daikure Co Ltd is to hold a groundbreaking ceremony today at the Southern Taiwan Science Park, becoming the first to build a plant at the Taiwan-Japan Park, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The ministry forecast Daikure would finish construction of its 10,514m2 new plant, which is being built at a cost of NT$5.5 billion, by the end of this year.
After starting mass production, the new plant is forecast to generate NT$150 million (US$5.06 million) and create about 50 jobs, the ministry said in a statement.
Machine tool exports disappoint
Local machine tool makers exported products worth US$287.27 last month, down 13.3 percent from US$331.34 million the previous year, because of dwindling demand and a loss of orders to Japanese rivals, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 機器工業同業公會) said.
Machine tool exports to Thailand, Turkey and India, the third, forth and fifth-largest importers of Taiwanese machine tools respectively, all posted double-digit year-on-year declines last month, while exports to the US, the second-largest importer of the products, declined 4.6 percent.
However, exports to China, the largest importer of Taiwanese products, rose 7.2 percent to US$87.08 million last month from US$81.23 billion in January last year.
Despite the decrease in machine tool exports, overall machine exports rose 3.4 percent to US$1.57 billion last month from US$1.52 billion the previous year.
NT dollar win streak ends
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, down NT$0.08 to close at NT$29.680 to end a three-session winning streak.
Turnover was US$875 million.
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