STEELMAKERS
CSC posts income drop
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steel maker, yesterday posted a 73 percent decline in operating income from NT$602 million (US$18.5 million) in August to NT$164 million last month amid falling steel prices. That brought the company’s third-quarter operating income to NT$828 million, down 79 percent from NT$3.93 billion in the second quarter. Pre-tax profit dropped 72 percent to NT$1.3 billion last quarter from NT$4.57 billion in the prior quarter, while revenue fell by 8 percent from NT$73.56 billion to NT$67.7 billion, the company said.
PANEL MAKERS
AUO loses third spot
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) lost third spot to China’s BOE Technology Group Co (京東方) on the ranking of the world’s major LCD panel makers during the first three quarters of the year, market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. AUO shipped 20.22 million flat panels during the first three quarters, compared with BOE’s 24.77 million, TrendForce’s data showed. South Korea’s LG Display Co, Samsung Electronics Co and Taiwan’s Innolux Corp (群創) remained the world’s top three LCD panel suppliers, TrendForce said.
BANKING
Exposure to China reduced
State-run banks lowered their business exposure to China to 64 percent of their net worth last month, from 68 percent a month earlier and compared with 70 percent a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement yesterday. The ministry issued the statement in response to local media reports that state-run banks make long-term unsecured loans to companies in China, raising concerns over their risk management as China’s economy slows. Most loans of state-run banks to Chinese firms are syndicated loans, which were made following proper reviews of borrowers’ credit profiles, the ministry said, adding that it will improve risk oversight.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Acer touts German debut
Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday said its subsidiary MPS Energy Inc (聯永基) and “Build Your Own Cloud” partner Studio X-Gene Co (創意庫) this week showcased their joint effort on an electric all-terrain vehicle (eATV) at a trade fair for electric and hybrid mobility in Munich, Germany. Acer said the eATV “X Terran” was designed by Studio X-Gene and utilizes MPS Energy’s battery management system technology. It also demonstrates Acer’s latest cloud-computing research and development in the connected-car field, Acer said in a statement. The PC brand established MPS Energy in July as part of its foray into the vehicle electricity and mobile power businesses.
BANKING
BOT inks tie-up with Mizuho
In a bid to reach out beyond its highly saturated home market and the nation’s low interest rates, Bank of Taiwan (BOT, 臺灣銀行) on Tuesday inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Mizuho Bank in Tokyo, after inking an MOU with Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd, Japan’s largest bank, in July. The MOU with Mizuho will pave the way for partnerships in businesses — including syndicated loans, project and trade financing, and electronic financial services — with Japan’s third-largest bank, Bank of Taiwan chairperson Lee Jih-chu (李紀珠) said. Bank of Taiwan said its partnerships with Japan’s leading banks will improve services in the two nations. It said it hopes that the exchange of experience will aid joint expansion plans in Southeast Asian markets.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts