Low tech sales cap TAIEX rally
The TAIEX ended higher yesterday, but gains were capped by selling in select electronics stocks on disappointing sales last month, dealers said.
Smartphone camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) and metal casing producer Catcher Technology Co (可成) trended lower due to steep drops in sales, while smartphone vendor HTC Corp (宏達電) was hammered by worries over its first quarter results, they said.
However, the old economy sector stabilized the broader market amid hopes that China will continue to stimulate domestic demand, which could benefit Taiwanese companies operating in China, they said.
The weighted index closed up 17.59 points, or 0.22 percent, at 7,950.30, after moving between 7,936.86 and 7,982.39, on turnover of NT$94.49 billion (US$3.19 billion).
Starbucks plans expansion
President Starbucks Coffee Corp (統一星巴克), a joint venture in charge of the Taiwan operations of the Seattle-based coffee giant, plans to increase the number of its coffee shops in Taiwan to 300 this year.
President Starbucks president John Hsu (徐光宇) said yesterday that 285 coffee outlets have been opened around the country.
Thanks to pretax profit gains of more than 10 percent last year, the company has decided to further expand its franchise this year and would continue to open outlets in smaller cities with populations of 100,000 or less, he said.
Turkey machine tool MOU inked
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Machine Tools Industrialists and Businessmen’s Association of Turkey yesterday that is expected to strengthen bilateral economic relations.
Taiwan’s machine tool exports to Turkey totaled US$204 million last year, an increase of 2.1 percent from the previous year, according to TAITRA. That put Turkey among the top five export markets for Taiwan’s machine tool industry.
Taiwan is now Turkey’s biggest supplier of machine tools, ahead of Germany, Italy, South Korea and Japan, the Turkish machine tool association said.
Hon Hai, Letv.com partner
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海) announced on Tuesday it will form a joint venture with Letv.com (樂視網), a Chinese Internet video Web site. Under the agreement, Hon Hai will produce Letv-branded “super televisions” and Internet TV boxes.
Letv.com chief operations officer Liu Hong (劉弘) said the strategic links would improve Letv’s TV-related products to the level of Apple Inc devices. Hon Hai internal sources said Letv’s super TVs would be 60-inch big-screen models produced by the world’s biggest contract electronics producer.
Hiring rise may aid graduates
First-time jobseekers may find it easier to get a job this year on the back of rising hiring demand, the latest report by 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) showed yesterday.
Openings for full and part-time jobs totaled 401,000 this month, up 5.7 percent from a year earlier. Work openings for first-time jobseekers rose at a pace of 6.7 percent to 192,000 this month compared with a year ago, translating into 47.3 percent of total job openings — the highest level in six years, the report showed.
“The results indicate that the job market is relatively friendly toward first-time jobseekers this year,” 104 Job Bank marketing director Regis Chen (陳力孑) said.
However, as of the end of January there were106,000 unemployed first-time jobseekers nationwide, which could lead to fiercer competition in the job market later on, the report added.
NT dollar gains slightly
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, rising NT$0.05 to close at NT$29.670.
Turnover totaled US$627 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
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],”
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
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