COMPUTERS
Qisda to buy stake in DFI
Qisda Corp (佳世達) yesterday said that it plans to acquire a 8.7 percent stake in local industrial computer maker DFI Inc (友通) for more than NT$450 million (US$14.7 million). Qisda said it plans to buy 10 million DFI shares at NT$45 per share. That represents a premium of 2.74 percent from DFI’s closing price of NT$43.8 yesterday. After the transaction, Qisda would be the second-biggest shareholder in DFI. Qisda has become the latest in a slew of local electronics manufacturers tapping the industrial computing business. Qisda reported 11.8 percent annual growth last quarter. Net profit was NT$620 million on revenue of NT$24.14 billion.
TELECOMS
CHT to expand 4G network
Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信), the nation’s biggest telecom, yesterday said it had bought a batch of equipment to expand its 4G network. The company spent NT$2.58 billion on the equipment, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. Chunghwa Telecom aims to boost its 4G coverage to 99 percent of the nation’s population by the end of this year. The company budgeted NT$30.7 billion for capital spending this year, mostly 4G network expansion. Chunghwa Telecom has more than 2 million 4G users, 43 percent of the nation’s 4.6 million 4G market.
DRONES
Thunder Tiger opens store
Thunder Tiger Corp (雷虎科技) on Sunday opened a flagship store in the newly launched Syntrend Creative Park (三創) in Taipei, showcasing its latest products. The products on display at the new store include the company’s TTRobotix Ghost series of multi-rotor aerial drones and the TTR-SB Seawolf underwater vehicle. The company’s aerial and submersible drones may be fitted with rugged cameras made by GoPro, a US firm that lists Hon Hai Group (鴻海) among its stakeholders. In a bid to expand into the Japanese market, Thunder Tiger in March agreed a distribution deal with Tajima Motor to sell its aerial and submersible drones.
SMARTPHONES
US brokerage bearish
Morgan Stanley has lowered its growth forecast for global shipments this year, citing weaker-than-expected demand in China and South America. The US brokerage firm revised its global shipment growth projection from 21 percent to 19 percent. It has also sharply cut its forecast for the growth of smartphone shipments to China from 8 percent to 1 percent. In a report issued on Friday last week, Morgan Stanley analyst Bill Lu said that besides slower smartphone growth in the overall market, brands such as China’s TCL Corp and Taiwan-based HTC Corp (宏達電) are losing market share to leading players such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co. Noting TCL’s recent efforts to expand its distribution channels in China, Lu said the profitability of such partnerships are close to break-even levels and a higher revenue share from China would hurt TCL’s gross profit margin. Meanwhile, there are no clear signs that HTC is recovering its market share across the region and the outlook for the Taiwanese company “remains dim,” he said. According to data from research firm IDC, worldwide smartphone shipments totaled 1.301 billion units last year, up 27.6 percent from 1.019 billion units in 2013. It is noteworthy that the worldwide smartphone market grew by 27.6 percent last year, but it was significantly slower growth then in 2013, said Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC’s mobile phone team.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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