TAIEX down on corruption
The TAIEX fell more than 1 percent to close under the 7,900-point mark yesterday as news of a stock speculation scandal broke and China moved to cool down its property market, dealers said.
Financial shares were down 1.5 percent after the Ministry of Finance on Sunday announced it would check the auditing processes of state-run securities and investment firms after news reports said such institutions were possibly engaging in corruption, dealers said.
The weighted index closed down 97.29 points, or 1.22 percent, at 7,867.34, after fluctuating between 7,849.52 and 7,966.22 on turnover of NT$84.02 billion (US$2.83 billion).
Microsoft to close Messenger
Microsoft Taiwan Corp has announced that it will shut down its Windows Live Messenger instant messaging system in Taiwan on April 8, but said users can replace the service with Skype, an online messaging and phone call program.
Messenger will continue to be available in China and Taiwanese users will be able to communicate with Messenger clients there after the change, it said.
Microsoft bought Skype, which serves 280 million users per month, for US$8.5 billion in 2011, and has been promoting the transition since November last year. The movement not only marks a reshuffle on the instant communications market, in which Messenger has lost its edge to major competitors such as Facebook Inc, Line and WeChat in recent years, but also helps Microsoft prepare the integration of its Windows 8 platform.
HTC phone to debut in Taiwan
Fresh from winning the top prize at the just-concluded Mobile World Congress in Spain, the latest model in HTC Corp’s (宏達電) One smartphone series will make its national debut on Friday, the Taiwanese smartphone maker said last week.
The phone was originally scheduled to be unveiled on March 4, but HTC postponed the launch.
The device, which was launched in London and New York on Feb. 19 to rave reviews, is priced between NT$23,000 and NT$26,000 in those two markets. Its retail price in Taiwan and other Asian countries has yet to be announced.
AIDC inks deal with US firm
The state-run Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空) yesterday signed a three-year contract with US-based Argosy International Inc in a bid to expand its international aviation business and enhance competitiveness in the global market.
Based on the contract, AIDC will collaborate with Argosy to keep promoting 11 ongoing projects aimed at keeping down the purchasing costs of 48 raw materials used for manufacturing airplanes, the company said in a statement.
The contract could help AIDC generate nearly NT$800 million in sales in the next three years.
TLC plans share issuance
Taiwan Liposome Co (TLC, 台微體) yesterday said it planned to raise NT$2.98 billion by issuing 10 million new common shares to fund research and purchase machinery.
TLC said its board decided not to distribute a dividend to shareholders this year because of company losses last year, although revenue grew 107.62 percent to NT$240.66 million from NT$78.23 million in 2011.
TLC focuses on the research and development of pharmaceutical products based on its lipid-based drug delivery technologies.
NT dollar down on greenback
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.104 to close at NT$29.770.
Turnover totaled US$746 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
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