OPTICS
Largan shares drop by limit
Shares of smartphone camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) dropped by the daily maximum of 10 percent yesterday due to the firm’s cautious sales outlook for this month, sending the broader market down 1.09 percent. On Wednesday, Largan reported sales last month rose 2.9 percent to NT$5.26 billion (US$165.6 million) from June, but said guidance for this month’s sales is to be flattish from last month. According to a client note issued by Morgan Stanley, Largan believes this is only a result of model transition, rather than a concern over end-demand. Shares in Largan, a key supplier to Apple Inc, fell NT$300 in Taipei trading to end at NT$2,720.
COMPUTERS
Acer net income plummets
PC maker Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday reported net income of NT$2 million for last quarter, representing a significant decrease from NT$484 million a year ago and NT$173 million in the first quarter. Earnings per share were NT$0.0008 last quarter, compared with last year’s NT$0.18 and the first quarter’s NT$0.06 per share, according to the firm’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The earnings mark Acer’s lowest quarterly net profit over the past five quarters.
CHIP DESIGN
Faraday income falls 6.5%
Faraday Technology Corp (智原), a fabless chip designing service and silicon patent provider, yesterday said net income last quarter dropped by 6.5 percent quarter-on-quarter and 13 percent year-on-year to NT$179 million, or NT$0.43 per share, as clients’ inventory adjustments dragged down its gross margin, which fell to 44.9 percent last quarter from 50.6 percent in the first quarter. For this quarter, Faraday expects revenue to drop by 9 percent to 12 percent from last quarter’s NT$1.75 billion, due to weakening demand for its application-specific integrated circuit design solutions, according to a statement. Gross margin might improve to more than 50 percent this quarter due to product mix adjustments, it said.
MEDIA
Eastern Media shares jump
Shares of Eastern Media International Corp (東森國際) rose by their daily maximum yesterday in Taipei, beating the broader market’s 1.09 percent fall, after the company confirmed its intention to sell all of its stake in local cable network Eastern Broadcasting Co (東森電視). On Wednesday, Eastern Media issued a statement that the company and the US-based Carlyle Group plan to accept a reasonable price for all of their shares in the TV network. US-based Carlyle Group owns a 61 percent stake in Eastern Broadcasting and Eastern Media holds a 21.32 percent stake in the TV network. The share sale would be worth at least NT$20 billion, according to media reports.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Precision Silicon to merge
Precision Silicon Group (嘉晶電子), a major supplier of silicon epitaxial used in semiconductor chips and solar cells, yesterday said its board approved a merger with Episil Semiconductor Wafer Inc (漢磊半導體晶圓) through a share swap. The deal will allow each Episil Semiconductor share to be exchanged for 1.867876 shares of Precision Silicon, which is to be the surviving entity after the merger. The deal is expected to close on Feb. 1 next year, the companies said. Precision Silicon shares fell by 0.97 percent to NT$10.2 in Taipei trading, while shares of Episil Holding Inc (漢磊先進投資控股), the parent company of Episil Semiconductor, dropped by 0.55 percent to NT$7.22.
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
France cannot afford to ignore the third credit-rating reduction in less than a year, French Minister of Finance Roland Lescure said. “Three agencies have downgraded us and we can’t ignore this cloud,” he told Franceinfo on Saturday, speaking just hours after S&P lowered his country’s credit rating to “A+” from “AA-” in an unscheduled move. “Fundamentally, it’s an additional cloud to a weather forecast that was already pretty gray. It’s a call for lucidity and responsibility,” he said, adding that this is “a call to be serious.” The credit assessor’s move means France has lost its double-A rating at two of the
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
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