Ministerial meeting under way
The head of the National Development Council and China’s foreign minister shook hands and chatted yesterday at the opening of the APEC ministerial meeting in Beijing.
The informal encounter between Taiwan’s Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) and Wang Yi (王毅) of China was the first between cross-strait ministerial officials at this year’s APEC meetings.
Kuan and Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) are representing Taiwan at the ministerial meeting, which ends today.
Duh is expected to meet Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng (高虎城) to talk about how to resume the stalled negotiations on a trade-in-goods agreement between the two sides.
Survey predicts 4% raises
Taiwanese workers could see raises of 4 percent on average next year, a number far below the regional average and better only than Japan’s predicted 2.8 percent raises, according to a survey released on Thursday by consultancy firm ECA International.
In its survey of global salary trends for this year and next year, ECA predicted a 7.2 percent average wage rise for Asia. After being adjusted for inflation, that represents a real raise of 2.7 percent, still higher than Taiwan’s predicted real-terms raise of 2 percent.
ECA asked about salary policies at 340 multinational companies in 66 countries, including 72 in Taiwan, to come up with its figures.
MediaTek hits revenue record
Mobile phone chip supplier MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said revenue for last month hit a company record level of NT$21.6 billion (US$703 million), up 55.56 percent year-on-year and 16.49 percent from September.
It was the first time the company’s sales surpassed NT$20 billion in a single month and analysts attributed the strong performance to customer restocking demand.
In the first 10 months, revenue surged 62.71 percent to NT$179.22 billion from a year earlier.
Revenue up for ASE
Advanced Semiconductor Engineers Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s biggest chip packager and tester, yesterday said its revenue jumped 27.7 percent annually and 3.4 percent monthly to NT$26.52 billion last month, boosting the company’s cumulative revenue from January through last month to increase 17.01 percent to NT$206.47 billion from a year earlier.
AUO catching up to Innolux
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), the nation’s No. 2 LCD panel maker, yesterday reported its best monthly revenue in 10 months, NT$37 billion, after shipments of PC and TV flat panels rose 5 percent to 10.34 million units from September.
Meanwhile, Innolux Corp (群創光電), the nation’s top LCD panel maker, said its revenue for last month dropped 0.5 percent to NT$38.28 billion from a month ago, as shipments of PC and TV panels shrank 4.5 percent to 12.09 million units over the month.
New vessels up U-Ming’s sales
Major bulk shipper U-Ming Marine Transport Corp (裕民航運) yesterday said the addition of two new vessels to its fleet would increase the company’s revenue for this quarter.
The Taipei-based company last year ordered four Panamax bulk carriers at Oshima Shipbuilding in Japan, with two 85,066 deadweight-tonne vessels starting operation this month.
The company’s sales for last month increased 15.98 percent year-on-year and 2.53 percent month-on-month to NT$768 million, with cumulative sales totaling NT$7.58 billion, up 30.3 percent from a year earlier.
Revenue drop for Nanya
DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) on Thursday said its revenue for last month dropped 2.3 percent to NT$4.15 billion from September, its first monthly contraction since June, but Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), a joint venture between Nanya and Micron Technology Inc, reported a flat growth in revenue at NT$6.91 billion last month.
Meanwhile, Inotera said its board had approved allocating NT$10 billion of capital expenditures for the development of 20-nanometer process technology, as the firm increases its capital spending to NT$50 billion next year from NT$22 billion this year.
Novatek reports growth
Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠), the nation’s biggest supplier of driver ICs for LCD panels, on Thursday reported a third-quarter net income of NT$2.1 billion, up 69 percent year-on-year and 18 percent quarter-on-quarter on sales of NT$15.3 billion, propelled by the rapid growth of system-on-chip sales and a stable increase in flat-panel driver chip sales.
For this quarter, Novatek said revenue would reach between NT$14.5 billion and NT$14.9 billion, down 3 percent to 5 percent from last quarter. Gross and operating margins would likely stay flat at 27.5 to 28.5 percent and between 14 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
Twitter to open HK office
Twitter Inc plans to open a Greater China headquarters in Hong Kong next year as it seeks to cooperate with local advertisers and developers, even as its services remain blocked in China.
Workers would be hired for sales and to build media partnerships, Twitter spokesman Jim Prosser said by text message. The office is expected to open in the first quarter, he said.
Greater China comprises the territories of China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan and has a population of more than 1.3 billion people.
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],”