PANEL MAKERS
HannStar posts losses
Local LCD panel maker HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) yesterday posted a quarterly loss of NT$1.35 billion (US$41.51 million) for last quarter, compared with a loss of NT$707 million in the previous quarter, as panel prices plunged about 20 percent sequentially. However, shipments rose 14 percent from 3.74 million units in the previous quarter to 4.26 million units last quarter. Gross margin deteriorated from minus-7 percent in the previous quarter to minus-14 percent last quarter. For last year as a whole, HannStar lost about NT$2.2 billion. Book value fell to NT$10.09 per share on Dec. 31 last year. The company’s board yesterday approved the plan to issue up to 700 million new common shares to introduce strategic partners and to repay debts.
BROKERAGES
SC approves Barclays exit
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday gave its approval for Barclays PLC to dissolve its Taiwan-based brokerage subsidiary, Barclays Capital Securities Taiwan Ltd, as the brokerage scales down its business in Asia. Barclays said its final day of business would be on April 22. The commission said that as of the end of last year, the UK brokerage held 0.43 percent of the local market, ranked 13th among 17 foreign peers operating in Taiwan and has been laying off its 33 employees since January. The commission said that Barclays has not applied to pull its banking unit from Taiwan. It is to be the second time that the UK brokerage has entered and left Taiwan.
BANKING
HK ranked ‘most profitable’
Hong Kong was the most profitable market for Taiwanese banks’ overseas operations last year, with profits reaching NT$23.64 billion, according to information provided by the FSC yesterday. The US ranked second with profit of NT$8.73 billion, followed by Japan’s NT$6.67 billion. China ranked fourth with NT$4.63 billion and Singapore ranked fifth with NT$3.52 billion, data from the commission showed. Aggregate profit in the five markets last year rose 19 percent annually to NT$54.11 billion, led by 59 percent annual growth in Singapore. Meanwhile, aggregate profits from Chinese operations contracted 29 percent annually. Tokyo Star Bank Ltd, a Japanese unit of CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控), last year earned NT$5.2 billion, or 80 percent of total earnings by Taiwanese Japan-based bank branches.
STOCK MARKETS
TAIEX dips below 8,800
The TAIEX closed below the 8,800-point mark yesterday after a disappointing showing by Apple-concept shares in the local equity market. The TAIEX yesterday fell 0.31 percent to 8,785.68 on turnover of NT$86.24 billion. Apple Inc unveiled its new 4-inch iPhone SE and a smaller, cheaper iPad Pro tablet on Monday, which are seen as targeting a specific group of users and are not expected to greatly affect the market. Shares of suppliers to Apple — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Catcher Technology Co (可成), Innolux Corp (群創) and TPK Holding Co (宸鴻) — were mostly lower, showing that they did not benefit from the unveiling of the new products. Only Largan Precision Co (大立光), a smartphone camera lens supplier to Apple, closed up, at NT$2,600. The share price of smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) sank by the maximum 10 percent to NT$101.5 after reports said that it was losing NT$1,200 for every device sold.
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
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
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