STOCK MARKET
TAIEX rises despite volume
Shares in Taiwan yesterday closed moderately higher in thin trading, with the bellwether electronics sector slightly underperforming the overall market. The TAIEX faced obvious technical resistance near the 8,365-point mark, with an expansion in trading volume required if the barrier is to be overcome, dealers said. The TAIEX ended up 47.33 points, or 0.56 percent, at 8,352.36 after moving between 8,316.83 and 8,364.59 on turnover of NT$82.99 billion (US$2.51 billion). The electronics sector rose 0.34 percent, with the semiconductor sub-index rising 0.47 percent. The financial sector rose 0.62 percent. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the most heavily weighted stock in the market, closed 0.38 percent higher at NT$132.5. Largan Precision Industry Co (大立光), the most expensive stock on the local market, fell 3.5 percent to end at NT$2,480. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, gained 0.35 percent to finish at NT$86. Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$2.96 billion of local shares.
SMARTPHONES
HTC losses meet guidance
Taiwan’s HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday reported a net loss of NT$5.41 billion, or NT$5.41 loss per share, on sales totaling NT$21.4 billion last quarter, meeting the range provided by the company’s guidance. Third-quarter results improved from the previous period, when the troubled smartphone maker recorded a net loss of NT$8.6 billion, or NT$9.7 loss per share. However, third-quarter sales fell by 35 percent quarter-on-quarter from NT$33 billion in the second quarter, according to a statement by the firm. The company’s sales totaled NT$95.93 billion in the first three quarters this year, down 31.5 percent from a year earlier.
BATTERIES
Simplo posts rise in sales
Simplo Technology Co (新普科技), which supplies battery packs to Apple Inc, yesterday posted sales of NT$5.68 billion for last month, up 5.24 percent year-on-year and up 1.2 percent from a month earlier. That brought the company’s quarterly sales to NT$16.13 billion for last quarter, an increase of 6.04 percent from NT$15.21 billion in the same period last year. On a quarterly basis, sales rose by 3.06 percent from the previous quarter’s NT$15.65 billion.
WIND POWER
Swancor posts pre-tax profit
Swancor Industry Co Ltd (上緯), which makes wind turbine rotor resin, yesterday said pre-tax profit last month totaled NT$164.3 million, helping the firm’s third-quarter pre-tax profit rise 43.92 percent sequentially to NT$498.38 million, or NT$5.97 per share. Revenue last month rose 48.25 percent year-on-year to NT$902.74 million. In total, Swancor amassed NT$2.76 billion in revenue last quarter, slightly down from NT$2.8 billion in the previous quarter.
SEMICONDUCTORS
MediaTek to acquire Richtek
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s largest handset chip designer, yesterday said it has secured 65.73 million shares of Richtek Technology Corp (立錡科技), exceeding the minimum requirement of 51.98 million shares to take over the power management chipmaker. The transaction is to be completed tomorrow via its subsidiary, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. MediaTek last month said that it made a tender offer to buy Richtek for about NT$28.96 billion in cash in two stages.
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