Magic Amah leaving the family
The Investment Commission yesterday confirmed that it had approved a NT$1.35 billion (US$44.64 million) investment by a Chinese company, the Nice Group Co (納愛斯投資), to acquire Taiwan’s Magic Amah Co (妙管家), a household cleaning products manufacturer.
The Nice Group, based in Zhejiang Province, manufactures cleaning products and has purchased a 100 percent stake in Magic Amah, the commission said.
The firm is being sold because the children of the Taiwanese company’s owner, Tsai Tsung-yang (蔡宗仰), expressed no interest in taking over the family business, the commission said.
In the first eight months of the year, China’s investment in Taiwan dropped by 25.15 percent year-on-year to US$238.996 million, the commission’s latest data showed.
Bond, T-bill issue announced
The Ministry of Finance yesterday said that the government plans to issue NT$165 billion worth of Treasury bonds in the fourth quarter, to roll over some of its maturing paper.
The government also plans to issue NT$65 billion worth of Treasury bills, which have a much shorter maturity, in the three months ending on Dec. 31, the ministry said this week in a statement.
Of the bonds to be sold, NT$40 billion are to be five-year bonds, NT$65 billion are to be 10-year bonds, NT$30 billion are to be 20-year bonds and NT$30 billion are to be 30-year bonds, the ministry said.
HTC keeps smartphone lead
HTC Corp (宏達電) ranked as the leading smartphone seller in the domestic market for the fourth consecutive month last month, according to statistics released yesterday by industry sources.
A total of 687,000 smartphones were sold in the nation last month, down 3.5 percent from a month earlier, and HTC grabbed a 22 percent share of the total, the figures showed.
HTC was followed by Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) with a 16 percent share and Samsung Electronics Co with 15 percent.
In terms of sales value, HTC also led smartphone vendors with a 25 percent share last month, outpacing Samsung’s 19 percent and Sony Corp’s 14 percent, the figures showed.
TAITRA touts e-commerce
E-commerce has the potential to join a nation’s export engines in the coming five to 10 years, Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) chairman Francis Liang (梁國新) said yesterday.
By next year, the nation’s e-commerce market is expected to reach NT$1 trillion in sales and China’s market is likely to grow to US$2.5 trillion in sales, Liang said at a Taipei forum held jointly by promoters of cross-strait trade.
Taiwan and China should work together to seize a larger share of the global e-commerce market, Liang said.
Jimmy Choo sets London IPO
Luxury shoe brand Jimmy Choo yesterday unveiled plans to launch on the London stock market next month to raise cash for expansion in Asia and elsewhere.
The group said in a statement issued in London that its owner, JAB Luxury, has agreed to float a 25 percent stake in a partial initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange.
The firm did not state how much financing it was aiming to generate, but media outlets reported that the initial public offering would value the group at about £600 million (US$981 million).
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
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],”