REAL ESTATE
Bidders snub luxury auction
A first-round foreclosure auction of an apartment unit in Taipei’s high-scale luxury building in the Boai Special District (博愛特區) failed to attract any bidders yesterday. The unit, measuring 178.98 ping, is located on the 18th floor of the Yuanta I Pin Building (元大一品苑) near the intersection of Renai and Jianguo S roads. It was to be sold for NT$262.7 million (US$8.01 million), or NT$1.88 million per ping, but failed to close the deal because of a cooling-down in the luxury property market, local media reported.
ENTERTAINMENT
Gamania reports sales boost
Online games publisher Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子) yesterday reported sales of NT$873.79 million for last month, up 19.38 percent year-on-year and 11.17 percent month-on-month, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing. Gamania, the local distributor of NCsoft Corp’s Lineage online fantasy game, attributed the increases to the launches of several mobile and PC games in the month as well as contribution from its e-commerce subsidiary, Jollywiz Digital Technology Co Ltd (樂利數位). Cumulative sales from January to last month totaled NT$6.3 billion, Gamania said.
SOLAR energy
TSEC sales up 48.53%
Taiwan Solar Energy Corp (TSEC, 元晶太陽能) yesterday said rising shipments of high-margin products and better selling prices boosted its sales 48.53 percent from a year earlier to NT$703 million last month. That helped the subsidiary of Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to see total sales for the first eight months this year rising 11.15 percent annually to NT$4.614 billion. The company said it has secured a three-year NT$2.07 billion syndicated loan from eight domestic banks and is expected to use the funds to improve its financial structure.
FINANCE
Shin Kong swings into losses
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) yesterday said it swung into losses of NT$2.52 billion last month, after reporting NT$493 million profit in July. The company said its life insurance unit, Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), saw losses of NT$2.62 billion last month, while its banking arm, Shin Kong Commercial Bank (新光銀行), reported NT$308 million in profits. Shin Kong Financial’s aggregate net income in the first eight months of this year came to NT$4.57 billion, or NT$0.44 per share.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Taiwan added to ads list
Instagram, the photo-sharing social network owned by Facebook Inc, has included Taiwan in its advertising business. According to an executive from Facebook’s Greater China office, starting this month, Instagram is allowing companies and users in Taiwan to post banners, videos and action-oriented ads on their photo feed. Instagram opened its photo feed to advertisers in November 2013, and the company plans to expand the service to over 30 countries by the end this month.
ELECTRONICS
HTC teams up with Spotify
Smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) has teamed up with online music streaming service Spotify Ltd to provide recommended playlists formulated to match users’ facial expressions. It is part of an HTC marketing campaign posted on Tuesday via the company’s official Twitter account, which says: “Smile! Or not. Whatever your mood, post a selfie here, and you’ll get a playlist to match it. http://spotify-htc.com/”
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”