AUTOMOBILES
New vehicle sales rise
New vehicle sales rose 10.1 percent month-on-month, but dropped 28.4 percent year-on-year to 25,226 units last month, data compiled by local motor vehicle offices showed yesterday. In the first nine months of the year, total vehicle sales decreased 0.5 percent from a year earlier to 312,148 units, the data showed. Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus models, continued to be the market leader, selling 5,393 cars last month, with a market share of 21.4 percent, and 96,561 cars from January to last month for a 30.9 percent market share, data showed.
ECONOMY
GDP growth ‘difficult’: DGBAS
Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) Minister Shih Su-mei (石素梅) yesterday said it would be difficult for the nation to maintain a GDP growth rate of more than 1 percent this year, as third-quarter GDP growth might show a contraction from a year earlier. However, Shih told lawmakers during a meeting of the Economics Committee at the legislature in Taipei that the outlook for the fourth quarter seems “slightly better.” In August, the DGBAS forecast that GDP would increase by 1.56 percent this year from last year.
BANKING
BIDV to set up Taipei office
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday said it approved an application by the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) to set up a representative office in Taipei, making it the first Vietnamese financial institution to establish a representative office in Taiwan. Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Jean Chiu (邱淑貞) said Taiwan is the fourth-largest foreign investor in Vietnam, and the BIDV is likely to upgrade its Taiwanese office into a branch. Eight Taiwanese banks have among them set up one subsidiary and 11 branches in Vietnam, she said.
CHIPMAKERS
VIA sells subsidiary to Intel
Chip designer VIA Technologies Inc (威盛科技) yesterday said it sold a handset chip subsidiary to rival Intel Corp on Wednesday. Terms of the deal are unknown, but the company in July said it inked an agreement with a third-party company to sell its stake in VIA Telecom Co (威睿電通), with expected asset gains of US$100 million. VIA Telecom, 50 percent owned by VIA Technologies, designs mobile phone chips supporting CDMA technology.
STEEL
CSC appoints new president
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) yesterday said its board decided to name president Andrew Sung (宋志育) as the company’s new chairman, replacing Tsou Juo-chi (鄒若齊), who unexpectedly resigned last week. Tsou is to become an honorary consultant with the company, while vice president Lin Horng-nan (林弘男) is to fill the vacancy left by Sung, CSC said in a statement. The personnel adjustments took effect yesterday. The board also approved the spending of NT$3.35 billion (US$101.27 million) to buy a property in Kaohsiung for storage.
AVIATION
TransAsia names president
TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空) yesterday said Executive Aviation Taiwan Corp (飛特立航空) president Chen Wei-chau (陳葦洲) would serve as its new president, beginning on Monday. Chen is to replace Fred Wu (吳滬生), who is to continue to help the company as a consultant.
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