HOUSING
Sales decline in two cities
Housing sales in Taichung and Kaohsiung contracted nearly 20 percent year-on-year last month due to weak confidence, separate government data showed yesterday. Taichung saw 3,286 property deals last month, while Kaohsiung recorded 2,730 cases, down 18.34 percent and 18.48 percent respectively from a year ago, official statistics showed. The results affirm the market has yet to emerge from unfavorable tax plans and fared worse than the strike of the global financial downturn in 2008-2009, Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
MediaTek ups Alpha stake
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), which supplies handset chips primarily to Chinese brands such as Lenovo Group (聯想) and Xiaomi Corp (小米), yesterday said it had bought 29.89 million shares of Alpha Imaging Technology Corp (曜鵬科技). The purchase is to increase MediaTek’s holdings in the image sensor maker from 15 percent to 50 percent. The transaction was made via MediaTek’s TV chip subsidiary, MStar Semiconductor Inc (晨星半導體). MStar last month said that it aimed to buy 27.95 million shares of Alpha Imaging at NT$27 per share. The deal would help MStar expand its product lineup to chips used in TV cameras, PC cameras and event data recorders for cars and handsets.
SEMICONDUCTORS
GlobalWafers posts profits
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), a wafer manufacturing arm of solar power cell maker Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (中美晶), yesterday said net profit reached NT$476 million (US$15.5 million), or earnings per share of NT$1.4, in the first three months of this year. Revenue reached NT$4.05 billion, gross profit was NT$1.02 billion and gross margin was about 25 percent. No comparative figures were provided. Last year, GlobalWafers made NT$1.8 billion in net profit, or NT$6.6 per share.
ELECTRONICS
Tripod net profit drops
Tripod Technology Corp (健鼎), a printed circuit board supplier, yesterday reported a 7.65 percent annual decline in net profit to NT$537.67 million for the past quarter from NT$582.21 million a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, the company’s net income plunged 28.25 percent from the previous quarter’s NT$749.38 million. Earnings per share were NT$1.02 last quarter compared with NT$1.09 a year earlier and NT$1.43 in the previous quarter, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
EQUITIES
TAIEX rises on US rally
The TAIEX yesterday closed up 24.99 points, or 0.25 percent, at 9,845.04 on turnover of NT$98.22 billion amid growing volatility. Propelled by rallies in the US market on Friday, the TAIEX opened 34.17 points higher shortly after the opening bell. However, the early momentum began dissipating as semiconductor sector shares slumped, bringing the weighted index down to its intraday low of 9,800.47. Strong performances by technology bellwethers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Largan Precision Co (大立光) as well as blue-chip financial shares helped the market rebound, pushing the index up 24.99 points at the close. Analysts said that apart from TSMC, the semiconductor sector is facing a slump in the second quarter as customers turn more conservative. TSMC closed 0.34 percent higher at NT$147.50, while Largan jumped 3.57 percent to close at NT$3,190.
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
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],”