FOOD & BEVERAGE
Famonn cafe chain to close
Restaurant chain operator Wowprime Corp (王品集團) yesterday confirmed the closure its cafe chain Famonn Coffee (曼咖啡) this month. Wowprime spokesman Chu Shu-ting (朱書霆) was quoted by Unique Satellite TV as saying that due to Famonn Coffee’s weaker-than-expected profitability, Wowprime decided to close the five remaining outlets at the end of this month. Famonn Coffee, which had 13 outlets at its peak, is one of 15 food and beverage chains owned by Wowprime.
INTERNET
Yahoo mobile views spike
Yahoo Inc Taiwan yesterday said that its weekly mobile page views have increased by 50 percent since it revamped the mobile version of its search engine last month. Yahoo Taiwan’s new mobile version went live last month, with a simplified page design, a constant stream of news articles and popular videos, which have been included on the Yahoo home page for PC users since March. The increased volume could boost the company’s local advertising revenue from mobile devices, which already accounts for more than half of the total, Yahoo Taiwan managing director Erika Wang (王興) said.
RETAIL
Pi launches QR payments
A subsidiary of Taiwan-based Web portal PChome Online Inc (網路家庭) on Wednesday launched a mobile transaction system to facilitate virtual shopping by scanning the QR codes of products advertised on billboards and posters. Pi Mobile Technology Inc (拍付國際), a mobile payment arm of PChome that was established in January, said the new transaction system is to expand the reach of its digital wallet service beyond individual consumers to the commercial sector. PChome chairman Jan Hung-tze (詹宏志) said the new “shopping wall” system is expected to expand mobile transactions in Taiwan, where about 75 percent of consumers are still using cash, compared with only 20 percent to 30 percent in Nordic nations that promote virtual currencies.
ELECTRONICS
Projector shipments fall
Shipments of projectors in Taiwan dropped by an annual 11.4 percent in the first quarter due to delays in supply contracts to schools, according to data compiled by research group International Data Corp (IDC). The 19,926 projectors shipped in the January-to-March period also represented a decline of 9 percent from the fourth quarter last year. The slide during the first quarter, which is traditionally a slow season for electronic goods, was aggravated by two key factors, IDC said in a report on Tuesday. Education sector demand was weaker than normal because of delays in issuing supply contracts, while there were fewer business days in the quarter because of the Lunar New Year holiday, IDC said. Epson remained Taiwan’s projector market leaders, with a market share of 33.7 percent in the first quarter, followed by Optoma Corp (奧圖碼), NEC, BenQ Corp (明基) and Vivitek Corp, the report said.
TELECOMS
Far EasTone offers free phone
Subscribers to Far EasTone Telecommunications Co’s (遠傳電信) new 4G rate plan are to be able to get Xiaomi Corp (小米) Redmi 2s for free on a service contract. The new plan allows subscribers 2 gigabytes (GB) of Internet usage for NT$298 per month. The company also launched a new 4G rate plan with 5GB of Internet usage for NT$698 per month.
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