Housing transaction values fall
The transaction value of residential and commercial housing last year fell more than 20 percent from the previous year amid concerns over a government-proposed tax reform plan that is expected to raise the tax burden on property investors, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said last week.
The sale values of homes, shops and offices fell NT$1.03 trillion (US$33.48 billion), or 21.75 percent year-on-year, to NT$3.71 trillion last year, Sinyi said.
Among the six major cities in Taiwan, New Taipei City and Taoyuan suffered the steepest decline in property transaction value last year, with New Taipei City’s transaction value falling 26.83 percent year-on-year to NT$764.1 billion and Taoyuan’s dropping 32.55 percent to NT$481.0 billion, Sinyi said.
Chunghwa reports income rise
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) on Friday said net income grew 9.1 percent from a year earlier to NT$3.91 billion last month, or earnings per share (EPS) of NT$0.5, which was the highest in a year.
For the first four years of the year, net income totaled NT$14.33 billion, or NT$1.85 per share, with revenue of NT$75.4 billion, the company said.
In comparison, Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the nation’s second-largest telecom company, earned NT$1.29 billion last month and NT$5.11 billion in the January-to-April period, with EPS of NT$1.88 and revenue of NT$39.19 billion, while Far EasTone Telecommunications Co’s (遠傳電信) net income was NT$1.08 billion last month and NT$4.07 billion in the first four months of the year, with EPS of NT$1.25 and revenue of NT$32.75 billion.
TXC earnings provide boost
TXC Corp (晶技), a local maker of quartz crystal components, saw shares rise 3.83 percent last week from the previous week, after the company reported better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter of the year.
TXC shares closed at NT$41.25 on Friday. The company’s net income was NT$221 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.71, nearly flat from the previous year, but better than Daiwa Capital Markets Inc’s estimate of NT$196 million, or NT0.63 per share.
TXC said gross margin and operating margin improved to 25 percent and 10.2 percent respectively last quarter, which Daiwa attributed to good product mix and operating leverage.
TXC said its board had proposed a cash dividend of NT$2.5 per share for shareholders, equivalent to a payout ratio of 78 percent on last year’s earnings.
The board also agreed to spin-off an LED sapphire substrate division in September to rationalize its organizational structure.
Evergreen starts ASEAN route
Container shipper Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) on Friday said it is launching a new service in Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia in a bid to tap into the booming economy in ASEAN markets. Starting yesterday, two 1,164 twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) vessels are to take turns plying the new route once a week, Evergreen said.
The vessels are to set out from Haiphong in Vietnam and travel to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Port Klang in Malaysia, Singapore, Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia and back to Haiphong, taking 14 days for the trip, the company said.
The new route is the fourth service Evergreen has launched in six months in the Southeast Asian market.
Mild chip growth expected
The production value of Taiwan’s integrated circuit industry is expected to grow at a mild pace in the second quarter, as the business has been facing inventory adjustments, the Industrial Economics and Knowledge Center (IEK, 產業經濟與趨勢研究中心) said in a report on Thursday last week.
This quarter, the local semiconductor sector is also encountering weakening demand in Europe and emerging markets in the world due to a stronger US dollar, the institute said.
The output of the local IC business for the second quarter is expected to grow 2.1 percent from NT$570.6 billion in the first quarter to NT$582.5 billion, IEK said.
Xiaomi to open ‘Mi Home’
Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp (小米) is to open its first “Mi Home” in Taiwan next month. The showroom, close to the MRT Xingtian Temple (行天宮) station, is to have a living room and a store-like section to exhibit new phones.
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
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
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