COMPUTERS
Acer’s yearly sales fall
Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday said sales fell 17.93 percent year-on-year to NT$23.38 billion (US$708.16 million) last month, although the figure grew 6.07 percent from the previous month. Cumulative sales declined 19.93 percent annually to NT$240.89 billion in the first 11 months of the year. The company’s sales this quarter might grow 4.96 percent to NT$70.57 billion from last quarter, but its PC shipments might decline by a single-digit percentage from last quarter, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said last month.
MEDICAL EQUIPMENT
Cowealth to raise funds
Medical equipment supplier Cowealth Medical Holding Co (合富醫療) yesterday said it plans to raise as much as US$30 million via bank loans, as the firm seeks funds to boost its working capital in the medium to long term. The company said in a statement that it has mandated CTBC Bank Co (中國信託銀行) to arrange the syndicated loan, adding that the bank is inviting nine other local banks to participate in the lending. Cowealth, which supplies and distributes medical devices and products in Taiwan and China, said it would also use the funds for future merger and acquisition activities.
ELECTRONICS
Teco reports fall in revenue
Motor and home appliance provider Teco Electric & Machinery Co (東元電機) yesterday reported revenue of NT$3.94 billion for last month, down 3.48 percent year-on-year and 0.19 percent month-on-month. In the first 11 months of the year, cumulative revenue fell 11.15 percent year-on-year to NT$44.16 billion. The company is forecast to report flat revenue this quarter from last quarter on weaker demand, Credit Suisse AG said.
PACKAGING
Green Seal touts BOPA line
Green Seal Holding Ltd (綠悅控股), which supplies biaxial oriented polyamide (BOPA) film for food-product packaging, yesterday said it expects an improved product mix, due to extra contributions from its seventh BOPA line in China. The seventh BOPA line might see utilization climb to 100 percent in the second quarter of next year from 80 percent, after a three-week maintenance period in February, the company said. Last month’s revenue fell 1.95 percent year-on-year to NT$510 million, with cumulative revenue for the first 11 months down 1.51 percent to NT$5.65 billion, it said.
AUTO PARTS
Depo reports record sales
Automotive lighting supplier Depo Auto Parts Industrial Co (帝寶工業) on Wednesday reported record sales for last month, which might boost its sales for this quarter to hit the highest quarterly level in the company’s history. Consolidated sales rose 18.11 percent year-on-year and 6.3 percent month-on-month to NT$1.42 billion last month, lifting cumulative sales in the first 11 months to NT$13.52 billion, an annual increase of 1.35 percent. Analysts forecast the company’s sales to reach NT$4.05 billion this quarter and total NT$15 billion for the whole of this year.
PANELMAKERS
Innolux sees revenue shrink
Innolux Corp (群創), the nation’s biggest LCD panelmaker, on Wednesday reported that last month’s revenue shrank 13.9 percent monthly and 33.8 percent annually to NT$25.46 billion as prices dropped on weak demand. The company said shipments of its flat panels used in PCs and televisions dropped 5.6 percent to 9.65 million units last month.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to