Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the nation’s largest financial service provider by assets, posted NT$2.12 billion (US$70.67 million) in net income for last month, up 19.21 percent from February and 18.44 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a statement.
The company attributed the increase to recovering business at its life insurance and banking subsidiaries, with Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽) contributing NT$1.45 billion in profit and NT$1.31 billion from Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行).
Cathay Financial said its life insurer continued to benefit from unrealized gains in real-estate investments as allowed by new accounting rules, boosting the unit’s profit by 64.38 percent last month and raising its earnings per share (EPS) to NT$0.73, from NT$.026 without the benefit.
In the first quarter, Cathay Financial accumulated NT$6.93 billion in net profit with EPS of NT$0.64, ranking third after Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) at NT$1.05 and Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) at NT$0.88, company data showed.
Meanwhile, the state-run Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) reported NT$930 million in net income last month, the company said in a statement yesterday.
Hua Nan's cumulative earnings totaled NT$2.61 billion in the first three months, equivalent to EPS of NT$0.3 and tying with Taiwan Cooperative Financial Holding Co (合庫金控) in 10th place among their listed peers, company statistics indicated.
On Monday, Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) reported first-quarter earnings of NT$4.23 billion, or EPS of NT$0.58, while SinoPac Financial Holding Co (永豐金控) said its cumulative net profits rose 3.4 times to NT$3.07 billion in the first quarter from the previous year, with EPS of NT$0.41.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the