SEMICONDUCTORS
King Yuan to increase capex
King Yuan Electronics Co Ltd (京元電) yesterday said its board approved a proposal to increase capital expenditures this year by about 15 percent to NT$5.8 billion (US$186.3 million) from a previously planned NT$5 billion. The chip testing and packaging services provider said it would use the funds to buy equipment and expand capacity to meet fast-growing customer demand. While demand seems to have softened a bit since March, King Yuan chairman Lee Chin-kung (李金恭) said the company’s performance in the second half of the year would be better than that of the first six months, after the industry enters its peak season in the third quarter.
TELECOMS
CHT raises 4G user target
Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信) yesterday raised its 4G subscriber target for this year to 4.2 million users from a previous goal of 4 million. International Data Corp forecast the number of 4G subscribers would reach 10 million at the end of this year, which means CHT would have a 42 percent market share if it hits its goal. CHT president Shih Mu-piao (石木標) said the company plans to add 4,500 new 4G base stations to boost network coverage to 99 percent by the end of this year. Both Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) aim to secure 3 million 4G subscribers each.
AIRLINES
CAL optimistic on cargo
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday offered an upbeat outlook for its cargo business in the second half of this year, saying that the launch of several new consumer electronics products by major international brands in the third quarter might drive up seasonal demand through the final quarter of the year. Statistics issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) showed the carrier’s annual aviation cargo volume last year was the sixth-largest worldwide. CAL transported 1.296 million tonnes of cargo last year, an annual increase of 8 percent, the IATA statistics showed.
INSURANCE
Taiwan Life EV rises 19%
Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽保險) yesterday said the company’s embedded value (EV) reached NT$51.853 billion for last year, an increase of 19.15 percent from NT$43.519 billion in 2013. The company was estimated to have an EV of NT$53.6 per share last year, up from NT$45.4, the company said in a statement. EV represents the value of a life insurance company’s future profitability plus its adjusted net asset value. Shareholders are expected to ratify the company’s merger with CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) on Monday next week, after the two firms agreed last month to a share-swap merger deal.
PHARMACEUTICALS
PharmaEssentia shifts team
Drugmaker PharmaEssentia Corp (藥華醫藥) yesterday announced a key management reshuffle in a bid to accelerate its new product development. President and CEO Lin Ko-chung (林國鐘) is to become the company’s chief strategy officer to help push blood disorder treatment drug “P1101” into the global market, while his position is to be filled by executive vice president Jack Hwang (黃正谷). PharmaEssentia said chairman Jan Ching-leou (詹青柳) is also to act as the company’s “qualified person” (QP) to ensure new medicine safety, the company said. QP is a technical term used in EU pharmaceutical regulation.
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