STEELMAKERS
CSC profits plummet 23%
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday said its pre-tax profits plunged 23 percent to NT$1.48 billion (US$47.59 million) last month, compared with NT$1.92 billion in February, mostly due to price declines. In the first three months of this year, pre-tax profit amounted to NT$6.04 billion. That represented an annual growth of 19 percent from NT$5.07 billion in the same period of last year, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Steel prices fell 12.6 percent sequentially in the past quarter. Shipments of carbon steel surged about 25 percent sequentially to 811,767 tonnes last month from 644,118 tonnes a month ago. Last quarter, China Steel shipped a total of 2.38 million tonnes of carbon steel, up 4.15 percent from 2.28 million tonnes in the same period last year.
BANKING
CHB opens Fuzhou branch
State-run Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (CHB, 彰化銀行) yesterday opened a branch in the Chinese city of Fuzhou to take advantage of booming economic development in China’s coastal province of Fujian. It is the lender’s third branch in China, where higher interest rates are expected to boost profit margins, although the benefits have been tapering off in recent years due to increasing competition. CHB owns a branch in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, and Dongguan, Guangdong Province. CHB chairman Chang Ming-daw (張明道) hosted the ceremony in person.
CURRENCIES
TWD hits five-month high
The New Taiwan dollar rose to a five-month high on optimism the economy will benefit from an expansion of monetary stimulus in China, its largest export market. The People’s Bank of China on Sunday announced a 1 percentage point cut to lenders’ reserve requirement ratios, the most since the global financial crisis. The move is expected to unleash about 1.2 trillion yuan (US$193.5 billion), potentially boosting China’s stock market and aiding sentiment toward regional bourses. “Funds might invest in other Asian currencies before the yuan,” Taipei-based Uni-President Asset Management Corp (統一投信) fund manager Samson Tu (涂韶鈺) said. The NT dollar rose 0.2 percent to NT$31.102 against the greenback, Taipei Forex Inc prices showed. The currency climbed to NT$30.972 earlier, the strongest level since Nov. 28 last year. One-month non-deliverable forwards remained little changed at NT$30.983, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
AVIATION
V Air offers NT$666 tickets
V Air (威航), a low-cost subsidiary of Taiwan’s TransAsia Airways (復興航空), yesterday said that it plans to launch a promotional campaign today that is to offer 10,000 tickets for as low as NT$666. The cheapest tickets are to be for Taiwan-Macau flights, while tickets to the destinations of Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand are to cost NT$999, the airline said. The campaign is to start at 9am today on the carrier’s Web site and run through 11:59pm on Thursday, it said, adding that all tickets would be for flights between May 1 and June 30. V Air, established in November 2013, launched its services on Dec. 17 last year with an inaugural flight to Bangkok. Flights to Chiang Mai and Macau were added to its network on Jan. 7 and April 11 respectively.
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