STEELMAKERS
China Steel to expand stake
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday said its board approved a plan to purchase a NT$939 million (US$29.9 million) stake in a Vietnamese steelmaking unit of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團). After the transaction, CSC will hold a 25 percent stake in Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp (台塑河靜鋼鐵興業), up from 5 percent, the company said in a statement. The investment is part of CSC’s broader overseas expansion plan, the company said. The deal is expected to deepen the company’s partnership with Formosa and would also pave the way for future collaboration in expanding to other Asian countries, including India and Southeast Asian nations, it said. The board also approved plans to invest an additional NT$869 million in Taiwan Rolling Stock Co Ltd (台灣車輛股份有限公司) and Tang Eng Iron Works Co (唐榮鐵工廠).
TELECOMS
Taiwan Star eyes coverage
Taiwan Star Telecom Co (台灣之星), a telecoms arm of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), said it plans to boost investment on network deployment with an aim to increase its 4G coverage to 98 percent by the end of this year, while indoor coverage is expected to increase to 80 percent. At the end of last year, the carrier’s 4G coverage had reached 96 percent, Taiwan Star said in a statement on Thursday. The company said new subscribers rose by 20 percent last month after jumping 45 percent in December last year.
PC MAKERS
Sales drop across industry
Following the peak holiday season in December last year, contract computer makers Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), Compal Electronics Co (仁寶電腦) and Inventec Corp (英業達) all reported monthly declines in sales for last month. Quanta’s revenue dropped 21.07 percent monthly to NT$70.12 billion last month. Compal sales declined 17.11 percent monthly to NT$68.73 billion last month, though the month’s sales jumped 28.54 percent from a year earlier. For last month’s sales, Inventec dropped 18.67 percent to NT$29.87 billion from a month earlier. The figure was a 29.5 percent decline from the previous year.
PC MAKERS
Pegatron income improves
Contract notebook computer maker Pegatron Corp (和碩) reported 3.27 percent monthly growth in income to NT$118.04 billion for last month. Pegatron’s sales for last month also jumped 28.98 percent from a year earlier, according to a company filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
TRANSPORTATION
Union seeks Uber informants
The Taipei taxi drivers’ union yesterday said it is offering a reward of NT$500 to people who provide firm evidence that US-based ridesharing service Uber is still operating in the nation, in violation of the law. The union said it worked with other organizations to raise NT$500,000, which would be split among the first 1,000 people who present pictures or video footage that prove Uber is still running a transportation service in Taiwan. The offer lasts until the end of next month, the association said. To obtain the reward, a person would have to report an incident to a motor vehicle office, providing a picture or video of a Uber car’s license plate, a screenshot of a confirmed dispatch order on the Uber app, a bill for the transaction and a confirmation slip from the motor vehicle office after filing the report.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
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