Forex reserves fall in January
Foreign exchange reserves totaled US$425.98 billion as of the end of last month, a decrease of US$53 million from a month earlier, the central bank said yesterday.
The main factor behind the decrease was that returns from the management of reserve assets were offset by the depreciation of the euro and other reserve currencies against the US dollar, the bank said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the market value of securities, bonds and New Taiwan dollar deposits held by foreign investors reached US$242.9 billion at the end of last month, accounting for 57 percent of the foreign exchange reserves, the bank said.
MediaTek sales up 22.11%
Handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday reported better-than-expected sales of NT$21.326 billion (US$636.22 million) last month, up by 22.11 percent from a year earlier and 15.15 percent from the previous month. The company on Monday provided weaker-than-expected sales guidance for this quarter, expecting sales to contract by 7 percent to 15 percent quarterly to between NT$52.5 billion and NT$57.4 billion due to fewer working days caused by the Lunar New Year holiday.
Hota sees record-high sales
Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co (和大工業) yesterday said its consolidated sales last month were the highest monthly figures in the company’s history at NT$502.998 million.
The company, which makes gears and shafts for automobiles, counts BorgWarner Inc, Tesla Motors Inc, Bombardier Recreational Products and Punch Powertrain NV among its major customers. Hota said last month’s sales were 16.45 percent higher than a year earlier and 4.08 percent more than the previous month.
Innolux, AUO sales drop
The nation’s two leading flat-panel makers reported mixed sales last month, dragged down by falling TV panel prices and a weaker NT dollar.
Innolux Corp (群創) yesterday said that consolidated sales decreased 41.5 percent year-on-year and 20.2 percent month-on-month to NT$21.1 billion, while AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) reported that consolidated sales dropped 24.4 percent annually and 5.7 percent monthly to NT$24.29 billion last month.
Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) forecast Innolux’s sales this quarter would fall 13.7 percent from last quarter and AUO would report a 7 percent quarterly decline.
ChipMOS repurchasing shares
ChipMOS Technologies Inc (南茂科技), a Hsinchu-based IC packaging and testing services provider, on Thursday said its board plans to repurchase 15 million shares on the open market, as it views current share prices as undervalued and a good investment opportunity.
The company said in a statement that it plans to buy back shares at or below NT$40 per share between yesterday and April 4, with a total purchase of up to NT$600 million.
ChipMOS shares closed at NT$31.8 on Wednesday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
ASE extends SPIL share offer
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s largest chip tester and packager, on Thursday said it would again extend the period of a tender offer to purchase up to 770 million shares of Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密) by another month from Feb. 16 to March 14.
ASE, which already owns about an about 25 percent stake in SPIL, said in a statement that the terms and conditions of the offer remain unchanged. ASE in December last year offered to buy 770 million shares, or a 24.7 percent stake in SPIL, at NT$55 per share.
Elan sales drop 20% yearly
Touchpad controller chipmaker Elan Microelectronics Corp (義隆電子) on Thursday said its consolidated sales rose 5.4 percent to NT$532 million last month from the previous month, thanks to higher shipments of touchpad applications used in notebook computers.
However, last month’s sales represented a decrease of 20.3 percent from a year ago, the company said in a statement.
Sales from touch controller-related products accounted for 65 percent of the company’s total revenue last month, with non-touch controller-related products made up the remaining 35 percent.
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