PC MAKERS
Asustek monthly sales rise
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday reported monthly sales of NT$33.68 billion (US$1.08 billion) for last month, down by 8.58 percent from NT$36.84 billion a year earlier. On a monthly basis, sales rose by 1.94 percent from NT$33.04 billion in the prior month, according to the firm’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. In the first five months of this year, the company generated NT$178.61 billion in revenue, down by 1.66 percent from the same period last year. The company expects sales this quarter to reach NT$100 billion on the back of strong smartphone sales and recovering momentum for notebooks, Asustek chief financial officer David Chang (張偉明) said. Contract notebook computer maker Wistron Corp (緯創) yesterday reported 2.39 percent annual sales growth to NT$44.87 billion for last month. Monthly sales dropped by 4.51 percent from NT$46.99 billion a month earlier, according to the firm’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Wistron’s consolidated revenue totaled NT$242.49 billion in the first five months of this year, up 14.13 percent from NT$212.48 billion a year earlier.
INTERNET
Google starts family section
Google Inc yesterday launched a new section in its Google Play app store in Taiwan that is designed to help parents find appropriate apps, games, books, movies and other digital content for their children. Local visitors to Google Play’s homepage can now tap a “family star” button that takes them to the new section of family-friendly apps, which can be filtered by age range and lets parents know which content includes advertising, Google said. About 30 percent of all app users on the Google Play store are parents of children who are aged 12 or younger, the US Internet giant said. “Google is sparing no effort to build a Web-based content platform that is appropriate for families,” Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at a news event held jointly with the Child Welfare League Foundation.
TELECOMS
Sercomm revenue hits high
Sercomm Corp (中磊), the nation’s biggest telecommunications equipment manufacturer, reported record-high monthly revenue of NT$2.3 billion for last month. That represents 35 percent growth from NT$2.08 billion in the same period of last year. On a monthly basis, revenue expanded 7 percent from NT$2.63 billion. In the first five months of this year, Sercomm generated NT$11.78 billion in revenue — also an all-time high — to gain 37 percent from NT$8.6 billion in the same period last year.
INTERNET
Hon Hai revs diversification
Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, is accelerating its efforts to develop its e-commerce platform as part of a plan to expand into businesses other than manufacturing. Hon Hai on May 25 said that its subsidiary Hongfujin Precision Industry (Shenzhen) Co (鴻富錦精密) had acquired import company Shenzhen Fuxuntong Trading. The announcement of the 80 million yuan (US$12.9 million) investment came the day after Hon Hai’s FoxconnMall.com (富貿商城), a one-stop business-to-business e-commerce portal, went online. The company’s computer, communication and consumer electronics retail Web site Flnet.com (富連網) also recently began operations in China and Taiwan, selling mainly handsets, tablets, TV sets and other digital products.
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
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
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