ELECTRONICS
Young Fast loses NT$902m
Touchpanel maker Young Fast Optoelectronics Co (洋華光電), which counts Samsung Electronics Co as its top client, posted a bigger quarterly loss of NT$902 million (US$28.86 million) for last quarter after booking an asset loss of NT$682 million. The company lost NT$429 million in the third quarter of last year. That brought the company’s total loss last year to NT$1.81 billion, deepening from a loss of NT$1.63 billion in 2012. Young Fast posted a loss for a third straight year last year. Company chairman Albert Pai (白志強) told investors yesterday that this year would be another difficult period for the company because of an ongoing price decline. The company will continue to cut costs by streamlining its workforce.
STEEL
EU imposes tariffs
The EU has imposed tariffs as high as 25.2 percent on stainless steel from China and Taiwan to curb competition for EU producers, such as Acerinox SA and Outokumpu Oyj. The duties punish Chinese and Taiwanese exporters of cold-rolled flat products for allegedly selling them in the EU’s 5.5 billion euro (US$6 billion) market below cost, a practice known as dumping. This kind of steel is used in everything from elevators and tanks to boilers and kitchen equipment. EU producers that also include Acciai Speciali Terni SpA and Aperam suffered “material injury” as a result of dumped imports from China and Taiwan, the European Commission, the 28-nation EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said yesterday in the Official Journal. The levies, which take effect today, are for six months and may be extended for five years.
TRADE
Cross-strait talks next week
The 10th round of the cross-strait trade in goods talks will be held starting on Tuesday next week at the earliest in China, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Given that Beijing and Seoul have initiated their free-trade pact, Taiwan will work on getting more favorable tax treatments than South Korea from Beijing during the three-day talks, Vice Minister Bill Cho (卓士昭) told a press conference. Bureau of Foreign Trade Director-General Yang Jen-ni (楊珍妮) will lead Taiwan’s negotiation team, while Bejing’s team is likely to again be led by Chen Xing (陳星), head of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, the ministry said.
ECONOMY
Money supply increasing
The nation’s money supply increased year-on-year last month with the broad gauge advancing faster than the narrow indicator, extending the so-called “death cross,” the central bank said yesterday. The broad M2 money supply gained 6.51 percent year-on-year last month, while the narrow money supply reading of M1B rose by 6.12 percent, ending six months of slowdown, the bank said. The bank dismissed concerns of a possible liquidity crunch, citing net foreign fund inflows for the past two months.
SMARTPHONES
Apple leads Taiwan’s market
Apple Inc led Taiwan’s smartphone market in sales volume and sales value, and had the best-selling single model for the fifth consecutive month last month, according to statistics released yesterday by industry sources. A total of 771,000 smartphones were sold in Taiwan last month, down 3.4 percent from a month earlier, the figures showed.
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six