SEMICONDUCTORS
TSMC hits market cap record
The market capitalization of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, hit a record high yesterday after its shares advanced on the back of strong foreign institutional buying. TSMC shares rose 3.57 percent to close at the day’s high of NT$145, with 82.24 million shares changing hands, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. The gains boosted the company’s market cap to NT$3.75 trillion, from NT$3.63 trillion on Thursday, TWSE data showed.
COMPUTERS
Barclays wary of PC stocks
Investors should remain cautious about the outlook for major Asian PC brands this year, with global PC shipments expected to continue declining from last year due to a lack of “killer” products and replacement demand, Barclays said in a client note yesterday. However, the British bank said it remained positive on Lenovo Group Ltd’s (聯想) outlook, as it expects the Chinese firm to see PC market share gains and new revenue contributions from its Motorola/IBM x86 server business. As for Taiwan’s Acer Inc (宏碁) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), Barclays said the two companies are likely to be affected by foreign-exchange losses in the near term, along with weakening demand in emerging markets.
TELECOMS
CHT, Acer partner on cloud
Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信) on Thursday teamed up with Acer Inc (宏碁) to jointly develop a cloud computing-based telecommunications platform for enterprises. The partnership will integrate the resources and technologies of the two companies to provide secure telecommunications services, intelligent private corporate telephone networks and multimedia terminal equipment, a statement from Chunghwa Telecom said. The new telecom platform will target domestic and international companies that are seeking more efficient and better integrated telephone network solutions, Chunghwa Telecom said.
CURRENCY
Yuan transactions up: PBOC
China’s use of its own currency for cross-border transactions has increased “notably,” reaching 9.95 trillion yuan (US$1.63 trillion) last year, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said yesterday, without giving a comparative figure. The combined volume of yuan settlement for cross-border trade, investment and financing accounted for about 20 percent of China’s total cross-border payments and receipts last year, the Chinese central bank said in a statement. China is seeking to raise the yuan’s international profile in line with its standing as the world’s second-largest economy.
SOCIETY
HK falls from livable city list
Hong Kong has dropped out of the world’s top 30 most-livable cities because of poor air quality and social unrest caused by the Occupy Central movement, consulting firm ECA International said. The city’s livability ranking fell 16 spots to 33rd, one of the steepest slides in the survey, while another Asian financial hub, Singapore, topped the list for the 16th straight year, according to a report posted on ECA’s Web site on Thursday. In Asia, Hong Kong ranks sixth for livability, behind Singapore and the Japanese cities of Osaka, Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama, according to ECA’s annual survey.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day