SEMICONDUCTORS
TSMC revenue falls 17.2%
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said revenue fell 17.2 percent month-on-month, but rose 23.6 percent year-on-year to NT$67.04 billion (US$2.04 billion). Cumulative revenue for the first eight months of the year totaled NT$575.47 billion, up 23.6 percent from a year earlier, the company said. In July, TSMC forecast its revenue for this quarter would grow by between 0.76 percent and 2.22 percent from last quarter to between NT$207 billion and NT$210 billion.
MICROCHIPS
ASE bid rejection urged
Chip tester and packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密) yesterday again urged shareholders to reject the share purchase bid by bigger rival Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), saying the ASE offer was purely opportunistic and undervalued the company. On Aug. 24, ASE launched an unsolicited NT$35 billion bid to buy a 25 percent stake in SPIL, with SPIL responding days later by engaging in a share swap with Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密).
ENTERTAINMENT
XPEC sets revenue record
Game developer XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技) yesterday said revenue hit the highest level in the company’s history last month, which boosted its shares to rise 2.5 percent in Taipei trading. The company’s consolidated sales reached NT$246 million last month, up 217.5 percent from a year earlier and 6.09 percent from the previous month, mainly because of contributions from its art production business and synergies from its recent merger and acquisition activities, XPEC said.
FOOTWEAR
Pou Chen’s sales up 10.42%
Footwear supplier Pou Chen Corp (寶成工業) yesterday said sales last month increased 10.42 percent from a year ago, but were flat from July. With consolidated revenue of NT$21.66 billion last month, the company’s total revenue in the first eight months this year rose 10.62 percent year-on-year to NT$176.16 billion, thanks to an influx of orders amid an international outsourcing trend, according to Pou Chen, which supplies footwear products to global vendors.
CONVENIENCE STOREs
President sees sales growth
President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), which operates 7-Eleven convenience stores, on Wednesday reported its sales grew 2.19 percent monthly and 2.79 percent annually to NT$18.12 billion, with aggregate sales in the first eight months of the year rising 1.35 percent year-on-year to NT$135.49 billion. Meanwhile, Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店), the nation’s second-largest convenience store operator, said revenues declined 2.33 percent monthly, but rose 2.36 percent annually to NT$5.18 billion last month. Aggregate sales in the January-to-August period rose 2.63 percent to NT$38.54 billion, it said.
FINANCE
Cathay reports income slide
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) on Wednesday said net income last month slid 81.83 percent to NT1.67 billion from July, with aggregate income in the first eight months of this year growing 24.68 percent year-on-year to NT$52.09 billion, or NT$4.11 per share. The company’s life insurance unit, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), reported some capital losses while still delivering a well-contained hedging cost last month, including a NT$1.6 billion provision for foreign exchange reserve in the month, the company said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained