UTILITIES
Electricity hikes limited
An average 8.49 percent increase in electricity rates that takes effect tomorrow will not affect most households or small businesses, state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) said. Homes that consume 500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) or less of electricity per month will be exempt from the price hike, as will small businesses consuming 1,500kWh or less per month, according to Taipower. In total, there are 9.85 million homes that consume 500kWh or less of electricity per month in the nation, while 710,000 small businesses consume 1,500kWh or less of electricity per month, Taipower said.
COMPUTERS
Tablets drive LED market
Tablet computers will continue to drive the LED backlight market, Taipei-based LEDinside said. “Although the future growth of tablet computers is waning, they still have considerable room to grow compared with other information technology products,” LEDinside said in a recent note, forecasting tablet shipments to grow 31.1 percent to 196 million units this year. With the LED-backlight TV market saturated and weak TV sales, the global LED-backlight TV market value is expected to slump for the first time ever next year, it added.
SMARTPHONES
Lumia available next week
Nokia Oyj launched its latest Windows Phone 8-based smartphone in Taiwan on Thursday. The Nokia Lumia 1020, boasting a 41-megapixel camera and optical image stabilization technology, will be sold via Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) from Oct. 8 for NT$24,900. Prior to its local launch, the Lumia 1020 was released in China, Hong Kong and Malaysia, said Vlasta Berka, vice president of sales and marketing at Nokia Pan Asia.
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
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six