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.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts