SEMICONDUCTORS
Elan plans NT$3.6 dividend
Touch-panel controller chip maker Elan Microelectronics Corp (義隆電子) yesterday said it plans to distribute a NT$3.6 cash dividend per share this year on earnings of NT$1.4 billion (US$445 million), or NT$3.61 per share, it made last year. Based on the company’s closing price of NT$54.7 in Taipei yesterday, Elan’s cash dividend yield is 6.58 percent, much higher than the average deposit rates offered by most banks in Taiwan. For the whole of last year, the Hsinchu-based firm’s total sales fell 1 percent to NT$7.69 billion from 2013. Its gross margin was flat at 46 percent from the previous year, but operating margin fell 2 percentage points to 19 percent, the company said in a statement.
SEMICONDUCTORS
WPG to raise Genuine stake
Semiconductor component distributor WPG Holdings Co (大聯大) on Monday announced that it would acquire a 50 percent stake in Genuine C&C Inc (捷元) from the open market at a price of NT$14.5 per share, representing a 10 percent premium to Genuine’s closing price of NT$13.15 on Monday. WPG already owned a 16.3 percent stake in Genuine and it will own up to 66.3 percent after the acquisition, which is estimated to worth NT$580 million. Analysts expect limited sales contribution to WPG in the immediate future from the deal, as Genuine’s revenue for last year was NT$10.76 billion, about 2.4 percent of WPG’s total revenue.
ELECTRONICS
Zheng Ding beats forecasts
Flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) maker Zhen Ding Technology Holding Ltd (臻鼎) on Monday reported better-than-expected results for the final quarter of last year on greater margin expansion and better operating expense control, boosting last year’s earnings to NT$6.74 billion, or NT$9.12 per share, with revenue of NT$75.95 billion. The company’s sales for this quarter are forecast to decline 30 percent from last quarter, but that is still about 5 percent better than the seasonal pattern as strong iPhone 6 momentum has extended to the current quarter, CIMB Securities Ltd analyst Felix Pan (潘俊宏) said in a note.
E-COMMERCE
Alibaba plans Taiwan fund
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) on Monday announced it was setting aside NT$10 billion for Taiwanese entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses through Alibaba marketplaces and platforms. The not-for-profit fund is expected to unleash Taiwan’s potential for innovation and entrepreneurship, helping it export products and services to the Chinese market, Alibaba founder Jack Ma (馬雲) said. The fund is to be used to help young Taiwanese entrepreneurs, whom Ma described as well-educated, creative and diligent. The program is expected to be launched in the second half of this year, the company said.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Asahi to buy China Foods
Itochu Corp agreed to sell a Chinese food unit to Asahi Group Holdings Ltd as the Japanese trader seeks to raise funds ahead of its planned US$5 billion investment in Citic Ltd (中國中信) and maintain its profit forecasts. Japan’s third-largest trading house will sell the 74.1 percent it owns in China Foods Investment Corp back to the unit for ¥161.9 billion (US$1.4 billion), the Tokyo-based company said in a statement. The rest of China Foods’ stock is owned by a unit of Asahi, the Japanese company most famed for its beer.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts