SOLAR ENERGY
Gintech back in the black
Solar cell maker Gintech Energy Corp (昱晶) yesterday said it swung into profit last quarter as prices rose on strong demand from China. The company made NT$137 million (US$4.19 million) in net profit last quarter, ending four quarters of losses. Over the previous four quarters, Gintech reported total losses of NT$698 million, the company said in a statement. Last quarter, gross margin jumped more than 10 percentage points from minus-2.6 percent in the second quarter and compared with minus-8.1 percent the previous year. Gintech president Pan Wen-whe (潘文輝) said last week that demand “is recovering gradually and hopefully we can start making a profit again.”
ECONOMY
Citigroup cuts GDP forecast
Citigroup cut its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 1.5 percent from an earlier forecast of 2 percent, the US bank said in its latest Global Economic Outlook and Strategy report issued on Wednesday. The report said Taiwan has felt the impact of weakening global demand and slowing domestic demand, and it expects the central bank to lower its key interest rates in December after cutting policy rates by 0.125 percentage points last month. For next year, Citigroup retained its GDP growth forecast of 2.4 percent.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
CTBC sets merger target
CTBC Bank (中國信託商業銀行) yesterday said it plans to complete its merger with CTBC Insurance Brokers Co (中信保經) on Nov. 30, with the former becoming the surviving entity. The move will make CTBC Bank the first Taiwanese bank to have an insurance brokerage. The bank hopes the move can expand its insurance-related services to customers through its network of 148 branches.
ELECTRONICS
Inventec Corp secures loan
Contract manufacturer Inventec Corp (英業達) yesterday said it had secured a NT$480 million syndicated loan from 19 domestic and foreign banks, led by Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行). The company said it plans to use the funds to improve its financial structure.
ELECTRONICS
No plan to quit mobile: Sony
Sony Corp has no plans to shut its mobile business unit, Sony Mobile Taiwan branch general manager Jonathan Lin (林志遠) said yesterday at at a product launch, dismissing rumors that the company could begin looking for potential buyers or exiting from the mobile business if it fails to turn a profit next year. Lin said that Sony Mobile chief executive Hiroki Totoki had denied the rumors during a meeting with him in Japan on Monday. Lin said Sony Mobile aims to grab a 30 percent share of Taiwanese sales of Android phones that retail for more than NT$15,000 when the new Xperia Z5 Premium goes on sale next month.
VIDEO GAMES
Gamania in joint venture
Online games publisher Gamania Digital Entertainment Co (遊戲橘子) yesterday inked an agreement with Japanese game developer GungHo Online Entertainment Inc to set up a joint venture, GungHo Gamania (江湖桔子). Gamania said it would hold a 49 percent stake in the joint venture, while GungHo would take a 51 percent stake. The venture, with an initial capital of US$5 million, aims to launch GungHo’s mobile game products in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. The Japanese company is particularly known for its Puzzle & Dragons series.
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
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by