HEALTHCARE
Hon Hai eyes US tie-up
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s biggest contract electronics maker by revenue, is teaming up with US medical device companies to expand into the healthcare market, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing an interview with Leonard Wu, general manager of the company’s healthcare business group. Wu said in the interview that Hon Hai is in talks with Palo Alto, California-based Varian Medical Systems to obtain the rights to sell radiation-treatment devices in China. The report said Varian had confirmed the talks, adding that Hon Hai has a good business development track record in Taiwan and China.
TECHNOLOGY
Samsung manager resigns
Andy Tu (杜偉昱), general manager of Samsung Electronics Taiwan’s information technology and mobile communication team, has resigned from the company for “personal reasons,” the company said yesterday. Tu is to stay in the company until late next month to complete work related to rolling out the S6-series smartphones, Samsung Taiwan said. Tu has led Samsung Taiwan to increase its annual mobile communication revenues “multiple times” between 2009 and last year, it said.
BONDS
Traders trim forecasts
Taiwan’s bond traders cut forecasts for local yields to reflect reduced prospects that the central bank will raise interest rates this year. The 10-year yield will drop as low as 1.45 percent this year, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 37 traders conducted from March 27 to Thursday last week. That compares with 1.6 percent projected in poll in December last year. The maximum rate seen fell to 1.75 percent from 1.8 percent, and 70 percent of respondents said that they expected no change in monetary policy this year.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Shares of Hermes surge
Semiconductor equipment maker Hermes Microvision Inc (漢微科) shares yesterday surged in morning trading as investors remained confident in the company’s solid position in the sub-20 nanometer wafer inspection business. Shares closed 1.08 percent higher at NT$1,865 and at one point rose as much as 1.9 percent to NT$1,880, the highest in the company’s history, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Hermes Microvision’s sales for this quarter might grow 60 percent from NT$1.57 billion to NT$2.51 billion (US$50.14 million to US$80.16 million) last quarter, driven by rising A9 order competition between Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co, as well as Micron Technology Inc’s migration to 20-nanometer DRAM production, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a note.
TIRE MAKERS
Sales to rise: Cheng Shin
Tire maker Cheng Shin Rubber Industry Co (正新橡膠), known for its brands CST and Maxxis, on Monday projected a sales rebound this quarter after sales for last quarter declined 8.96 percent from a year earlier to NT$28.88 billion. The company attributed its optimism to a stabilizing pricing environment and healthy market inventory level. Net income fell 13.65 percent from a year earlier to NT$16.02 billion last year, or NT$4.94 per share, because of price declines in both passenger car and truck tires, as well as higher brand marketing expenses. Barclays Capital Securities Taiwan Ltd yesterday said in a note that there is no sign of a turnaround yet in view of the company’s rising operating expenses.
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