BANKING
Windfall may not be shared
The banking sector reported record profits in the first 11 months of last year, but shareholders may not be able to get all of them. The sector earned NT$305 billion (US$9.629 billion) from January through November last year, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said in a statement on Tuesday last week. However, a part of the profits are classified as gain from bargain purchasing in mergers and acquisitions, meaning that the windfalls may not be distributed among companies’ shareholders, the commission said. The acquisition of Japan’s Tokyo Star Bank by CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行) in June last year netted the Taiwanese company bargain purchase gains of NT$14.81 billion, for example.
TOURISM
Factories make NT$3.32bn
Enthusiasm for tourism factories among both domestic and overseas tourists has generated NT$3.32 billion (US$104 million) in revenues last year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said on Saturday, predicting that the earnings will reach NT$3.8 billion this year. Thanks in part to nearly 10 million foreign visitor arrivals to the nation last year, a record-high, the tourism factory sector had seen 16.6 million visits, a 38 percent annual growth, according to the ministry. The ministry is predicting that tourism factory visits could rise to 19 million this year as a result of economic recovery, increasing revenues by up to 14 percent. It has actively promoted the niche tourism sector since 2003 to provide a new source of income for manufacturers of traditional products that have been losing their competitive edge largely due to higher labor costs. The project blends Taiwan’s industrial culture and tourism by converting select factories into popular tourist destinations, the ministry 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],”