MACROECONOMICS
Current account surplus up
The nation’s current account surplus rose to US$19.67 billion during the July-to-September period, while the financial account saw a net fund outflow of US$16.15 billion, the central bank said yesterday. The bank attributed the surplus to lackluster imports that fell 21.4 percent year-on-year due to cheaper oil prices. Expectations of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve drove funds to pull out of emerging markets, including Taiwan, last quarter, the bank said. Last quarter saw a tourism deficit of US$478 million, as Taiwanese continued to flock to Japan and Europe, thanks to a weak yen and euro, the bank said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Bookings ratio drops
The book-to-bill ratio for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers, such as Applied Materials Inc, dropped to below one last month, the first time in three months, according to statistics Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) released yesterday. The three-month average of worldwide bookings shrank 14.7 percent to US$1.33 billion last month, from September’s US$1.55 billion, according to the trade association’s data. The three-month average of worldwide billings fell 9.1 percent to US$1.36 billion last month from US$1.5 billion in the prior month. That brought the book-to-bill ratio to 0.98 last month, SEMI’s statistics showed. “Both bookings and billings weakened for the second consecutive month; however, year-to-date bookings and billings levels remain above last year’s levels,” SEMI chief executive officer Denny McGuirk said in a statement.
TABLETS
Microsoft sees expansion
Microsoft Corp’s local branch on Thursday said that it would expand the commercial reach of its range of Surface devices next year following their successful entry into the local education sector. “We have made good progress with Surface in the commercial market, and we expect to expand into other sectors next year,” Grace Chou (周文英), sub-business group leader of Windows and Surface at Microsoft Taiwan, said at the launch of the Surface Pro 4 convertible tablet in Taipei. Microsoft Taiwan made a “breakthrough” recently in the education sector by introducing the Surface devices in several elementary schools and universities, she said. Sales of Surface devices locally this year have doubled from the same period of last year. Microsoft Taiwan expects to reach more retail consumers with its Surface products next year, thanks to the improved features of the Surface Pro 4, she said.
SOFTWARE
More malware forecast
A security software company on Thursday said that mobile malware will increase globally to 20 million by the end of next year, attacking mobile payment methods and causing glitches in the Internet of Things. Japan-based Trend Micro Inc’s annual report, The Fine Line: 2016 Security Predictions, said online extortion, hacktivism and mobile malware will continue to grow next year while government entities and corporations around the globe will adopt a more offensive cybersecurity posture. Trend Micro chief technology officer Raimund Genes said more corporations will be hiring cybersecurity officers to coordinate manpower and resources to ensure online security for their firms.
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