SEMICONDUCTORS
Intel sells US$1bn in notes
Intel Corp sold US$1 billion worth of notes in Taiwan, marking the world’s biggest chipmaker’s first US dollar-denominated bond sale in the nation. The 30-year notes pay a 4.9 percent coupon, according to a US filing. It is Taiwan’s third-largest offer in the currency to date, after US telecommunications firm AT&T Inc issued US$2.6 billion of securities in February and US$1.3 billion of bonds in November last year. Intel tapped the global bond market this month for US$7 billion to finance part of its US$16.7 billion takeover of Altera Corp. Foreign companies have flocked to Taiwan to issue US dollar debentures in the past two years, taking advantage of the nation’s flush liquidity. Such issuance has already hit US$18.4 billion this year, compared with US$20.4 billion for the whole of last year, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. Cathay United Bank Co (國泰世華銀行), MasterLink Securities Corp (元富證券) and Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) were the arranging banks.
TELECOMS
HTC to invest in WEVR
Smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday said it is to invest nearly US$10 million in the US-based virtual-reality, open-platform company WEVR Inc as part of an effort to develop its non-smartphone business. HTC said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange that the investment is to be carried out via subsidiary HTC (BVI) Corp to acquire 15 percent, or 1.73 million shares, of WEVR. The smartphone maker in March unveiled its first virtual-reality headset, the HTC Vive, at the Mobile World Congress in Spain. Company chairperson Cher Wang (王雪紅) told shareholders last month that the firm is to accelerate its acquisition of new business opportunities in the face of rising competition in the smartphone industry.
SOFTWARE
Ministry denies app claim
The Ministry of Economic Affairs on Tuesday denied that Juiker — an instant messaging app developed by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and transferred to Loft Technology Co (源思科技) — was funded by Chinese money. The ministry’s remarks came after the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said that Loft Technology chairman Dai Wei-heng (戴偉衡) was a major investor in a Chinese company, which could cause a serious information security leak, as most government officials use Juiker to communicate with each other. The Investment Commission said in a statement that its preliminary investigation shows that none of Loft Technology’s capital comes from Chinese investors, adding that all of the company’s shareholders are Taiwanese.
SCIENCE PARKS
Park’s revenue increases
The combined revenue of factories in central Taiwan science parks rose to NT$522.1 billion (US$16.6 billion) last year, setting a record high, Central Taiwan Science Park administration director-general Wayne Wang (王永壯) said on Monday in a ceremony marking the 12th anniversary of the agency’s establishment. The agency has parks in Taichung’s Houli District (后里), Changhua’s Huwei District (虎尾), one under construction in Yunlin’s Erlin District (二林) and the Advanced Research Park in Nantou (南投), which combined occupy 1,708 hectares. As 92 percent of the land available in the developed parks has already been rented, the supply of standard factory buildings in the parks is unable to meet the demand, according to the administration.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day