PROPERTY
TFCC names new chairman
Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFCC, 台北金融大樓) president Chou Te-yu (周德宇) is to take over as chairman of the operator of the Taipei 101 skyscraper following the resignation of Christina Sung (宋文琪) due to personal reasons, Vice Minister of Finance Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑) announced yesterday. Chou is a suitable replacement given his capabilities in foreign languages, public relations and management, Wu said.
BANKING
KGI’s HK branch approved
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday said it had approved KGI Bank’s (凱基銀行) application to set up a branch in Hong Kong. The banking arm of China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) aims to provide a comprehensive portfolio of banking and financial products and services in Hong Kong through the establishment of the branch. Taiwanese banks have set up 20 branches and three representative offices in Hong Kong, the commission said.
DISPLAYS
TPK reports revenue dip
Affected by weakening demand for smartphones. TPK Holding Co (宸鴻) yesterday said that revenue decreased 10.5 percent from October and 6 percent from a year earlier to NT$12.58 billion (US$381.96 million) last month. That brought the nation’s top touchpanel maker’s revenue in the first 11 months of the year to NT$113.56 billion, down 2.3 percent from the same period last year.
GAMING
X-Legend sales edge down
Online game publisher X-Legend Entertainment Co (傳奇網路) yesterday said its consolidated revenue fell last month on lower sales of new products and declining contribution from royalties. Revenue was NT$90.4 million last month, down 7.38 percent from October and 38.58 percent lower than a year earlier, the company said. That brought the company’s total revenue for the first 11 months to NT$1.14 billion.
CLOTHING
Makalot sales plunge 41%
Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽), a diversified garment manufacturer that counts global brands and major clothing retailers among its customers, yesterday said that sales declined 40.74 percent sequentially last month, as some of its orders were delayed to next quarter. However, sales last month were still 9.93 percent higher from a year earlier, lifting the company’s cumulative revenue from January through last month to NT$21.56 billion.
INTERNET
Shih touts farming initiative
Acer Inc (宏碁) founder and former chairman Stan Shih (施振榮) yesterday initiated a cross-industry strategic alliance to assist the nation’s agriculture industry to utilize Internet of Things applications. Shih said Acer’s Build Your Own Cloud (BYOC) cloud-computing platform could also enable farmers to store and analyze data. Partners of the alliance include the Global Bio-Industry Technology Development Foundation (全球生物產業科技發展基金會) and Tons Lightology Inc (湯石照明).
SOLAR WAFERS
Green Energy revenue rises
Green Energy Technologies Inc (綠能科技) yesterday said revenue rose 4 percent month-on-month to NT$1.4 billion last month, the highest in 10 months, as strong demand for high-efficiency solar wafers helped prop up prices. In the first 11 months, total revenue inched up 0.1 percent annually to NT$13.97 billion, the company said.
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