CEMENT
Producers’ reports mixed
Two leading cement producers this week reported mixed earnings results for the final quarter of last year, as Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥) saw its net profit rise 6 percent year-on-year to NT$2.58 billion (US$82.27 million), while Asia Cement Corp (亞洲水泥) reported net profit of NT$1.65 billion, down 20 percent annually. For this year, the two companies face headwinds from the continued cement price correction in China and sluggish construction demand there, UBS Securities Ptd Ltd said yesterday. Lower coal costs could offer some positive support, it said. Taiwan Cement plans to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2.49 per share and Asia Cement is to pay a NT$2.2 dividend per share, based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$2.93 and NT$2.98 respectively.
ENERGY
CPC cuts LPG prices
State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said it would cut prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) items this month, while keeping those for liquefied natural gas (LNG) products unchanged from last month. Effective today, prices for household LPG are to drop by NT$0.6 per kilogram and by NT$0.3 per liter for LPG used in cars to reflect a fall in international LPG contract prices, CPC said in a statement. The price of a 20kg household gas cylinder would decrease by NT$12, it said.
MANUFACTURING
TPK raises US$384m
Touchpanel supplier TPK Holdings Co (宸鴻) has raised US$384 million by issuing global depositary receipts (GDR) and overseas convertible bonds, and the company plans to use the proceeds to purchase raw materials, according to a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. The company said it raised US$133.6 million by offering 20 million GDRs at NT$209.02 per share, representing a 4.5 percent discount from the stock’s closing price of NT$219 on Tuesday. It also raised US$250 million by issuing bonds at NT$240.37. The bonds can be converted into a total of 32.54 million common shares after they mature in April 2020. TPK shares tumbled 3.65 percent in Taipei trading yesterday to close at NT$211.
MANUFACTURING
Bumpy outlook for Merida
A lack of fundamental improvement in the outlook of its Chinese business remains the biggest structural issue facing Merida Industry Co (美利達), the nation’s No. 2 bicycle maker, JPMorgan Securities Ltd said yesterday. Merida is expecting revenue for this year to grow by between 5 percent and 10 percent from last year’s NT$27.2 billion, but JPMorgan said it is forecasting a 7 percent annual increase, given the continued weakness in business in China amid intensifying competition with Chinese manufacturers. The firm reported net profit of NT$3.35 billion last year, or NT$11.2 per share. JPMorgan forecast NT$11.8 in earnings per share for this year.
BANKING
Citigroup eyes millionaires
Citigroup Inc is targeting a 10 percent increase in its Asian wealth assets under management this year as the region’s growth creates more millionaires. The trend of an “expanding middle class and increasing concentration of wealth among affluent individuals in Asia is very much alive and continuing,” Asia-Pacific head of consumer banking Jonathan Larsen told Bloomberg News in an interview in Hong Kong last week. The firm made 20 percent of its revenue in Asia last year and manages US$250 billion of assets for wealth management clients in the region.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to