BANKING
Home loans growth slows
Home loans totaled NT$5.96 trillion (US$179.02 billion) at the end of last month, a rise of 2.93 percent from the same period a year earlier, the slowest pace of increase in two years, according to statistics released by the central bank yesterday. Cautious sentiment on the part of home buyers accounted for the slowdown, the central bank said. However, self-occupancy upheld the housing market, as first-time buyers increased their mortgage loans by NT$3.3 billion at eight major state-run banks to NT$433.4 billion last month from July, the central bank said. Construction financing increased 4.26 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.66 trillion, the lowest annual increase in 19 months, the central bank said.
BANKING
Fitch updates its ratings
Fitch Ratings Inc has changed its ratings for several private banks in Taiwan, driven by changes in the banks’ intrinsic credit profiles, according to a statement released yesterday. The ratings agency said it upgraded EnTie Commercial Bank’s (安泰銀行) national rating from “A-”to “A,” revised the outlook of Far Eastern International Bank (遠東國際商銀) and Taichung Commercial Bank (台中商銀) from “negative” to “stable” and affirmed the ratings of Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (上海商業儲蓄銀行), King’s Town Bank (京城銀行) and Bank of Taipei (瑞興商業銀行).
BANKING
BOT, Land Bank to cut rates
State-owned Bank of Taiwan (BOT, 臺灣銀行) yesterday announced it plans to lower its New Taiwan dollar interest rates on Tuesday next week, following in the footsteps of the central bank, which announced a cut in official interest rates on Thursday. The BOT is to cut the interest rate on various time deposits and time savings deposits by between 0.02 and 0.075 percentage points, the bank said in a statement. State-controlled Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) also announced that it would slash interest rates on various time deposits by between 0.02 and 0.08 percentage points beginning on Tuesday.
INVESTMENT
Powerchip venture approved
The Investment Commission yesterday approved Powerchip Technology Corp’s (力晶科技) application to invest US$230 million in a 12-inch wafer plant in Hefei, Anhui Province, China. The Taiwanese company plans to use the funds to work with Hefei Construction Investment and Holding Co (合肥市建設投資控股) at the factory to produce driver ICs for LCD TV panels, the commission said in a statement. Powerchip said the technologies used in the Hefei factory are to be five generations behind its newest technologies. The company also promised to invest at least NT$5 billion on research and development in Taiwan each year, the commission said.
SOLAR ENERGY
Motech, Aide Solar team up
Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), the nation’s biggest solar cell maker, yesterday said it had reached an alliance agreement with Jiangsu Aide Solar Energy Technology Co (江蘇艾德太陽能科技) in a bid to expand its presence in China. In a statement, Motech said it agreed to sell a 4.61 percent share in Motech (Suzhou) Renewable Energy Co (茂迪蘇州新能源) to Aide Solar in exchange for a number of solar cell manufacturing facilities worth 76.83 million yuan (US$12.05 million). Aide Solar, a solar cell and photovoltaic module maker, is a China-based subsidiary of Taiwanese diode maker Pan Jit International Inc (強茂).
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San