TSMC posts record sales
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) posted record quarterly sales as clients including Apple Inc prepare for the release of new smartphones and tablets.
Second-quarter sales were NT$183 billion (US$6.1 billion), higher than the NT$181.4 billion average of 23 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg and the top of TSMC’s own forecast of NT$180 billion to NT$183 billion.
Apple has contracted TSMC to make chips for its devices using the Taiwanese firm’s latest 22/20 nanometer production technology, analysts said.
Hon Hai sales grow 18.3%
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported consolidated sales of NT$316.99 billion last month, up 18.3 percent from May and up 4.06 percent from a year earlier to hit the highest level this year, the company said.
Sales in the second quarter fell 0.46 percent to NT$879.4 billion from the first quarter, while sales for the first half of the year rose 3.32 percent year-on-year to NT$1.76 trillion.
Compal reports rising sales
Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) on Wednesday reported that sales rose 12.8 percent month-on-month and 34.6 percent year-on-year to NT$76.71 billion last month, the highest since November 2010.
The strong sales pushed the company’s accumulated revenue for the first half of the year to NT$372.45 billion, up 11.4 percent from the same period of last year.
The contract notebook computer maker said it shipped 19.6 million notebooks in the first half of the year.
Vanguard’s sales soar
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) on Wednesday said it posted NT$5.82 billion in consolidated sales for the second quarter, up 5.7 percent from a quarter earlier and within the company’s earlier estimate of a 2 percent to 6 percent sequential increase.
Last month alone, Vanguard’s consolidated sales rose 2.7 percent from a month earlier to NT$1.99 billion, the best monthly results in more than 13 years, the company said.
Analysts said the growth in second-quarter sales showed solid demand for chips for power management system use, which boosted Vanguard’s capacity utilization rate.
Chen new ScinoPharm CEO
Fred Chen (陳勇發), senior vice president of research and development and chief technology officer of ScinoPharm Taiwan (台灣神隆), which makes active pharmaceutical ingredients, is to succeed Jo Shen (馬海怡) as its president and CEO on Aug. 1, the company said yesterday.
Shen is to step down as president and CEO on July 31.
Chen has worked for the company since it was founded in 1998 and all ScinoPharm Taiwan’s products were developed under his supervision. From 2006 through 2009, Chen was chief operating officer of ScinoPharm Kunshan Biochemical Technology Co, a Chinese subsidiary of ScinoPharm Taiwan, the company said.
Taipei moves up tourism ranks
MasterCard Worldwide said on Wednesday that Taipei has moved up three places to rank 15th in its annual survey of the world’s top travel destinations in terms of visitor numbers.
Taipei, with about 6.3 million overseas visitors, was ranked behind London, Bangkok, Paris, Singapore, Dubai, New York, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Seoul, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Milan and Rome, MasterCard said.
The influx has brought the city about US$10.8 billion in visitor spending, making it the most lucrative travel market in the Greater China region, the report said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained