Hon Hoi, Sharp talks fail
Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) and Japan’s Sharp Corp will cease their year-long talks on capital cooperation tomorrow because the two parties cannot come to terms on the proposed partnership deal, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun reported on Saturday.
Hon Hai, the world’s largest electronic manufacturing service provider, and cash-strapped Sharp tentatively reached an agreement in March last year for the Taiwanese firm to acquire a nearly 10 percent stake in Sharp for ¥550 per share.
However, both sides have since August last year tried to renegotiate the terms, including the acquisition price, after the Japanese firm’s share prices fell sharply, amid concerns over its bottom line.
R&H opening Kaohsiung studio
Rhythm & Hues Studios Taiwan Co (節奏), a subsidiary of the California-based visual effects company Rhythm & Hues Studios Inc (R&H), will move into a new facility in southern Taiwan next week, an executive said on Saturday.
“Everything is working fine and on track,” Rhythm & Hues Studios Taiwan manager Mike Yang (楊修宇) said.
Seven artists who have finished training in India will start to work at the new Greater Kaohsiung studio next week, along with 10 other administrative staff, Yang said.
The new facility will offer space to more than 200 local and foreign artists and instructors over the next five years, according to the company.
R&H has a globally distributed production infrastructure, with studios in Mumbai and Hyderabad in India, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Vancouver, Canada.
The company received an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects this year for Life of Pi.
Asia Cement China profits fall
Asia Cement Corp (亞洲水泥), one of Taiwan’s leading cement suppliers, said on Saturday that its subsidiary in China — Asia Cement (China) Holdings Corp (亞泥中國控股) — witnessed its earnings plunge last year due to an oversupply in China.
Asia Cement (China) posted 395 million yuan (US$63.71 million) in net profit last year, down 70.53 percent from 2011.
Its earnings per share stood at 0.25 yuan, down from 0.86 yuan a year earlier.
Reflecting falling prices in the Chinese market, the subsidiary posted 6.68 billion yuan in revenue last year, down 18.55 percent from a year earlier, Asia Cement said.
A board meeting of Asia Cement (China) proposed a dividend of 0.1 yuan to stakeholders, representing a 40 percent payout ratio. The proposed dividend was lower than the 0.17 yuan it issued for 2011.
Comebuy opens new Japan shop
Taiwanese teashop chain Comebuy opened its third shop in Japan on Friday, as part of the company’s ambitious plan to open 100 outlets in Japan within three years.
Comebuy was also the first Taiwanese bubble tea enterprise to venture into the European market, opening a shop in Berlin, Germany, in August 2011.
It was also the first to tap the Big Apple, debuting on 5th Avenue August last year.
The company also has teashops in China, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
It is also planning to make inroads into France, the Czech Republic, the UK and India.
Established in 2001, Comebuy opened its first teashop in Taiwan in 2002 and now has about 200 outlets worldwide.
ECCT plans expansion
The European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) is planning to include more companies as members to accelerate its goal of becoming a nationwide organization.
“We are targeting 1,000 members this year,” ECCT chairman Giuseppe Izzo told reporters on the sidelines of the chamber’s luncheon with journalists on Wednesday.
Reaching the target would result in the addition of 300 new members, Izzo said, compared with a flat growth in the chamber’s membership last year.
The chamber represents about 700 members from 400 companies and organizations.
With more than US$31 billion in direct foreign investment, European businesses remain the largest group of foreign investors in Taiwan, the chamber said.
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