STOCK MARKET
Capitalization declines
The market capitalization of the Taiwan Stock Exchange stood at about NT$24.62 trillion (US$775 billion) as of yesterday, down 2.58 percent, or NT$651.39 billion, from a week earlier, as the TAIEX fell 223.05 points, or 2.57 percent, in the whole of last week, according to statistics released by the stock exchange. The TAIEX closed at 8,442.29 points yesterday. As the main bourse remained in consolidation mode, the benchmark index is forecast to move between 8,300 and 8,500 points in the near term, dealers said.
BANKING
Bad loans fall
Taiwanese banks’ average non-performing loan ratio fell to 0.25 percent at the end of June from 0.26 percent in the previous month, reflecting healthy asset quality for the 39 domestic lenders, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Thursday. Total outstanding loans at domestic banks stood at NT$24.96 trillion in June, a decrease of NT$47 billion from May, while bad loans totaled NT$63 billion, a decrease of NT$19 million from the previous month’s NT$64.9 billion, the commission said. The coverage ratio — loans covered by banks’ provisions and a gauge indicating the sufficiency of bad loan reserves — rose 10.59 percentage points to 501.14 percent in June, the commission said.
LED SUPPLIERS
Everlight income plunges
LED supplier Everlight Electronics Co’s (億光) net income last quarter plunged 37.19 percent annually and 44.91 quarterly to NT$309 million, or NT$0.7 per share, below the market’s consensus estimate of NT$389 million. The company yesterday posted revenue of NT$2.25 billion for last month, down 13.75 percent from last year’s NT$2.61 billion and 7.02 percent from the previous month’s NT$2.42 billion. Cumulative revenue totaled NT$16.55 billion in the first seven months of the year, up 0.13 percent from NT$16.53 a year earlier. Everlight’s revenue this quarter might increase 4 percent from last quarter’s NT$7.05 billion, but the firm’s growth momentum will remain below historical seasonal patterns, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a note yesterday.
PANELMAKERS
Innolux revenue takes hit
Innolux Corp (群創), the nation’s biggest LCD panelmaker, yesterday said revenue dropped slightly by 1.7 percent to NT$29.66 billion last month, compared with NT$30.16 billion in June, after shipments of PC and TV panels shrank 3.7 percent sequentially. Innolux expects shipments of PC and TV panels to drop by a mid-single-digit percentage sequentially this quarter, while prices would be flat on better TV demand. Shipments of small and medium-sized panels rose 17.5 percent last month from a month earlier, the company said. In the seven-month period ended last month, revenue declined 5.69 percent to NT$223.57 billion from NT$237.05 billion in the same period last year.
BICYCLE MAKERS
Merida revenue picks up
Merida Industry Co (美利達), the nation’s No. 2 bicycle maker, yesterday reported last month’s revenue grew 10.68 percent from a year earlier and 27.42 percent from June to NT$3.26 billion as demand recovery in China picked up gradually. The company’s cumulative revenue for the first seven months totaled NT$16.498 billion, up 7.23 percent from the same period last year, Merida said. The company is expecting revenue for this year to grow by between 5 percent and 10 percent from last year’s NT$27.2 billion.
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