BANKING
ANZ exits Asian businesses
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) has exited the emerging corporate business in Taiwan and another four Asian countries with about 100 job cuts, a report said yesterday, citing a Melbourne-based spokesman. The report said ANZ exited from the unit that lends to small and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Indonesia. Australia’s major banks are scrambling to improve shareholder returns and profits amid slowing revenue growth and stricter regulatory capital rules.
INSURANCE
China Life denies merger
China Life Insurance Co Ltd (中國人壽保險) yesterday denied market rumors that it is in merger talks with local financial institutions. “It’s pure media speculation,” China Life said in a statement, after the Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) reported that the insurer plans to sell its shares to China Development Financial Holding Corp (CDFHC, 中華開發金控) at NT$37 per share to pave the way for a merger. Shares of China Life fell 0.4 percent to close at NT$25, while CDFHC rose 1.25 percent to NT$8.13 on the local bourse.
TECHNOLOGY
Chipbond profit falls
Chipbond Technology Corp (頎邦), a driver integrated circuit packaging and testing-service provider, yesterday reported the lowest profit in four years for last year, as major clients worked to adjust their inventories. Last year, Chipbond posted NT$2.088 billion (US$63.119 million) in net income, down 21 percent from the previous year. Earnings per share were NT$3.19 last year, the lowest since 2012. The company also released sales for the first two months, down 13.5 percent year-on-year to NT$2.433 billion. Chipbond posted NT$16.86 billion in sales for the whole of last year.
TECHNOLOGY
Memorychip prices fall
DRAM module supplier Apacer Technology Corp (宇瞻) yesterday said falling prices for memory chips caused the company’s sales to drop 27.8 percent annually to NT$7.38 billion last year, with net income nearly halved to NT$228 million, or NT$1.53 in earnings per share. The company said its board has decided to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2 per share to shareholdes, which is subject to approval at the company’s annual general meeting on June 3.
INTERNET
Online sales rise overall
PChome Online Inc (網路家庭), the nation’s largest online shopping store, yesterday said sales rose from last year, but declined from the previous month. Consolidated sales increased 17.4 percent year-on-year to NT$2.23 billion, but the figure fell 5.34 percent month-on-month, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing. In the first two months of the year, cumulative sales totaled NT$4.59 billion, up 21.9 percent from the previous year.
OPTOELETRONICS
AUO approves share sales
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), the nation’s second-largest LCD panel maker, yesterday said its board approved the sale of up to 950 million common shares via a private placement to introduce strategic partners. The shares offering can also be in the form of corporate bonds for local and overseas shareholders, depending on the market situation, AUO said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing. The company plans to use the proceedings to invest in high-end technologies and improve its financial structure.
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
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San