Yuan deposits edge higher
Yuan deposits at Taiwanese banks totaled 293.026 billion yuan (US$47.64 billion) at the end of last month, up 0.1 percent from the 292.738 billion yuan at the end of June, the central bank said yesterday.
Last month’s level of yuan deposits included 240.988 billion yuan in savings accounts at 67 domestic banking units and 52.038 billion yuan in savings accounts at 58 offshore banking units, according to data provided by the central bank.
Medigen shares continue fall
Medigen Biotechnology Corp (基亞) shares extended their losses yesterday, falling by the maximum daily limit of 7 percent for the 15th consecutive trading session, despite the company strongly denying on Thursday news reports that the development of its new liver cancer drug is just a scam.
Medigen shares closed at NT$150 yesterday on the GRETAI Securities Market. Medigen’s market capitalization has been cut by NT$40 billion as its share price has fallen 66 percent over the past 19 trading sessions.
E Ink back in the black
E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s largest e-paper display maker, swung into a quarterly profit of NT$85 million (US$2.83 million) last quarter, thanks to an improvement in gross margin, which rose to 15.7 percent from minus-1.6 percent in the first quarter.
The company reported a net loss of NT$965 million in the first quarter.
In the first six months, E Ink’s cumulative losses shrank 41.4 percent to NT$879 million from NT$1.5 billion the previous year.
Acer eyeing Mexican market
Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s No. 4 PC brand, plans to sell its new smartphones and wearable devices in Mexico next quarter through retailer Office Depot.
Acer ranked the No. 2 PC brand in Mexico last quarter. The country will be the 31st in which Acer sells its smartphones this year.
The company said earlier it plans to sell its smartphones in 25 overseas markets this year.
CTBC defends former chairman
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) on Thursday said its former vice chairman Jeffrey Koo Jr (辜仲諒) and some of its employees did not make a profit from investments related to an illegal purchase of a 9.9 percent stake in state-run Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) a decade ago, after the Taiwan Supreme Court sent a High Court ruling back to the trial court.
The case is known locally as the Red Fire Case after the name of an offshore company used to conduct the transactions in 2004.
Koo Jr and several company executives were accused by prosecutors of buying the Mega Financial stake without the approval of the company’s board.
The high court last year sentenced Koo to nine years and eight months in prison for violating the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法) and the Banking Act (銀行法).
CAL to add Christchurch flights
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), the nation’s largest carrier, said on Thursday that it plans to offer flights to Christchurch, New Zealand, between Dec. 1 and Feb. 28 next year to meet higher travel demand at that time.
The route, which will transit through Sydney, will operate every Monday, Thursday and Saturday during the period, bringing the airline’s total number of flights to New Zealand to 11 a week.
CAL also has 14 flights to Australia a week, plus another eight flights to Auckland via Sydney or Brisbane.
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