PANELMAKERS
AUO sales drop 15.3%
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) yesterday reported that sales last month declined 15.3 percent from January and 27.5 percent annually to NT$20.57 billion (US$622.2 million), due to fewer working days because of the long Lunar New Year holiday. Shipments of desktop and notebook computer display panels declined 9.5 percent sequentially to 7.07 million units, but shipments of small to medium-sized panels grew 2.4 percent sequentially to 11.64 million units. The company said it would continue to focus on quality of sales over quantity. Growth this year will be driven by further differentiation of its product mix, such as display panels for medical, Internet of Things, virtual reality and wearable applications, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
E Ink, Dai Nippon partner
E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技) yesterday announced a partnership with Japan’s Dai Nippon Printing Co Ltd to develop products based on the Taiwanese firm’s low energy consumption electric paper technology. The companies announced that they were collaborating on two upcoming products: an animated billboard with multi-color content using E Ink Prism technology and smart cards with near-field communication capabilities that can display content using E Ink Mobius technology for credit and debit cards and retailers’ loyalty cards.
RESTAURANTS
Tai Tong sales rise 16%
Restaurant operator Tai Tong Food & Beverage Group (TTFB, 瓦城泰統集團) yesterday said that sales last month had risen 16.08 percent annually to NT$406.62 million to reach a record high. The company attributed the strong growth to the high season for year-end and Lunar New Year banquets. Aggregate sales in the first two months of this year rose 20 percent annually to a unprecedented NT$721 million, it said. TTFB shares yesterday gained 0.43 percent to reach NT$235 in Taipei trading.
BANKING
Fubon opens in Shenzhen
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) the nation’s most profitable financial services provider, yesterday said that its Chinese banking subsidiary, Fubon Bank (China) Co Ltd (富邦華一銀行), has opened a new branch in the Qianhai pilot free-trade zone in Shenzhen, China. Fubon Financial is the only Taiwanese company to have banking branches in all of China’s free-trade zones, including Tienjin, Kunshan and Shanghai. With three recently approved applications, Fubon Financial is poised to raise its presence in China to 22 locations before the end of this year, the company said in statement.
BANKING
FSC fines Hua Nan
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday said that it had fined state-run Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) NT$3 million for extending NT$520 million in unauthorized mortgages between November 2013 and February last year. The bad mortgages were the result of a lapse in the bank’s internal controls, the regulator said. It said that NT$270 million worth of the mortgages have been classified as nonperforming. Investigators found that the bank had approved 34 mortgages for a criminal ring that falsely reporting inflated home prices to gain excessively high loan-to-value ratios. Hua Nan said that 25 of the 34 loans had been processed by the same employee, who has since left the bank.
This story has been updated since first published to correct the timeline for the problematic mortgages written by Hua Nan Commercial Bank.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group