ONLINE GAMES
Gamania losses down
Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子), a developer and host of online interactive titles, yesterday said its losss narrowed to NT$25 million (US$830,000) last month, compared with loss of NT$82 million in the same period of 2012. The company lost a total of NT$58 million in November and December last year, an improvement from losses of NT$118 million in the corresponding period of 2012, according to a company statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Gamania shares, traded on the GRETAI Securities Market, rallied 2.97 percent yesterday. Revenue jumped 24 percent to NT$755 million last month, from NT$610 million a year ago.
PETROCHEMICALS
LCY plans R&D building
LCY Group (李長榮集團), which operates petrochemical product maker LCY Chemical Corp (李長榮化學), plans to invest NT$2.2 billion (US$70 million) in Greater Kaohsiung to build a research and development (R&D) center to enhance the group’s capabilities, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. LCY plans to hire 500 R&D workers for the center. The center is to be built in two phases. The group plans to build a seven floor R&D building in the first phase. The construction is set to be completed by the end of next month, with operations starting in April. The second phase of R&D construction is scheduled to begin in January next year.
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