CASINGS
Catcher posts record income
Catcher Technology Co (可成), which supplies metal casings for Apple Inc’s iPhones, yesterday posted net income of NT$7.07 billion (US$211.07 million), up 9.8 percent year-on-year. Sales during the period rose 38 percent year-on-year to NT$21.41 billion. Earnings per share for the October-to-December period last year were NT$9.18. Sales last year rose 49.1 percent year-on-year to NT$82.41 billion, with net income growing 40.5 percent to NT$25.12 billion, or earnings per share of NT$32.61, a new record high, the company said.
ECONOMY
No rebound in Q1: TIER
The nation’s waning economic growth momentum is not likely to improve until the second quarter, but a significant rebound is not expected until the third, the traditional high season for export-oriented companies, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台經院) said yesterday. Due to a number of macroeconomic issues, visibility in the global economy has become very low, economic forecasting center director Gordon Sun (孫明德) said, noting that experts are having trouble seeing beyond a quarter ahead. He said that the electronics sector might begin to see an improvement in sales in April due to a low basis point set last year.
TOURISM
Leofoo executive probed
Leofoo Tourism Group (六福旅遊集團), which owns hotel chains, theme parks, movie theaters and bakeries, said in a statement yesterday it is cooperating with an insider-trading probe involving a board member and that all its subsidiary companies are maintaining normal operations. The statement came after media reports that board member Lai Cheng-rong (賴振融) is under investigation for stock transactions in August 2011 soon after the company raised its earnings forecast. Lai is the husband of Leofoo chief operating officer Lulu Chuang (莊豐如), the daughter of the group’s founder, Sean Chuang (莊秀石). The group declined to comment on the ongoing investigation except that it would have no impact on its financial standing.
COMPUTERS
Advantech income up 3.95%
Advantech Co Ltd (研華), the nation’s biggest industrial computer maker, yesterday said that its net income last year rose 3.95 percent year-on-year to NT$5.13 billion, with sales gaining 6.35 percent from the previous year to NT$38 billion. Earnings per share last year were NT$8.08, a new record high. The company said that net income last quarter rose 9.3 percent year-on-year to NT$1.35 billion, while sales during the period grew 6.18 percent year-on-year to NT$9.75 billion. Earnings per share last quarter were NT$2.12. The company said that it is seeking suitable acquisitions in the next five years and that net income is anticipated to exceed NT$10 billion by 2020.
SMARTPHONES
HTC shares up on previews
HTC Corp (宏達電) shares yesterday rose 5.76 percent to close at NT$82.6 in Taipei trading as the market reacted favorably to previews of the smartphone maker’s flagship products. In addition, UA Healthbox, a fitness product consisting of a UA Band and UA Heartrate wearable device, has passed regulatory certification in Taiwan, boosting hopes that the company’s second-quarter sales will improve. The company posted a preview of the curved metal-clad design of its upcoming M10 flagship smartphone on its Twitter account.
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