RETAIL
Citylink to open in Nangang
Ruentex Development Co (潤泰創新) is scheduled to open a Citylink shopping center that is connected to MRT Nangang Station today, after the first Citylink mall opened at Songshan Railway Station last year. The Nangang mall will be linked to the high speed rail system in the future. The new mall boasts a total floor space of 16,000 ping (52,890m2) and can accommodate 150 shops. Ruentex said annual revenue at the mall is expected to range between NT$2 billion and NT$2.5 billion (US$63.6 million and US$79.5 million).
SEMICONDUCTORS
SPIL expects lower capex
Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密), the nation’s second-largest chip testing and packaging service provider, yesterday forecast lower capital spending for next year at NT$14.5 billion, down from an estimated record-high of NT$21.1 billion this year. Capital expenditure for next year will mainly focus on expanding the company’s advanced technologies capacity and on research and development, SPIL said in a statement. Aside from its own capital, SPIL plans to arrange new bank loans to fund its capacity expansion, it said.
SOLAR
SAS to set up subsidiary
Solar wafer maker Sino-American Silicon Products Inc’s (SAS, 中美晶) board yesterday approved a plan to set up a new subsidiary to build solar farms, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company said investment in each solar farm will be capped at NT$100 million, but it did not say where the solar farms would be located.
FINANCE
Russia risk limited: FSC
Turmoil in Russia’s financial markets has prompted worries about its impact on Taiwanese financial firms, but the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said domestic companies’ direct exposure to “Russia” is limited. Taiwanese banks had NT$30.7 billion in aggregate exposure in Russia as of the end of October, including NT$17.8 billion in loans, or 0.07 percent of Taiwanese banks’ total lending, and NT$12.9 billion in direct investment, or 0.56 percent of total investment, the commission said yesterday. Taiwanese life insurers had NT$105.2 billion in Russian exposure as of October, or 0.92 percent of total investment, the commission said.
STEEL
CSC posts solid earnings
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s largest integrated steelmaker, on Wednesday reported a pretax profit of NT$2.87 billion for last month, down 2.45 percent from NT$2.94 billion in October, but up 65.07 percent year-on-year from NT$1.74 billion. Pretax profit for the first 11 months of the year totaled NT$26.08 billion, an increase of 18.38 percent from NT$22.03 billion a year earlier.
TELECOMS
Coolpad installing malware
Coolpad Group Ltd (酷派), China’s fourth-largest smartphone vendor, has installed software providing a backdoor to its devices, a report by Palo Alto Networks Inc said. The backdoor sends information such as calling history to Coolpad servers and also activates applications on the phones using Google Inc’s Android without user consent, the report said. While some mobile companies install apps to gather statistics on how devices are performing, the software “goes well beyond this” to act as a true backdoor into Coolpad devices, Palo Alto Networks said.
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],”