CHIPMAKERS
Lextar reports Q1 loss
Lextar Corp (隆達), an LED chip manufacturing arm of AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), yesterday reported a net loss of NT$18 million (US$553,369) for last quarter, marking the first loss-making quarter since the fourth quarter in 2011. The quarterly earnings plunged from the net profit of NT$181 million it made over the same period last year and the net profit of NT$33 million recorded in the previous quarter, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Lextar attributed the net loss to the extended pricing competition from last year through the first quarter of this year, pressuring Lextar’s sales and margin performance.
INTERNET
PChome posts record sales
PChome Online Inc (網路家庭), the nation’s largest online shopping platform operator, reported sales of NT$1.94 billion for last month, the highest record over the same period of time in the company’s history. The monthly result represented an annual increase of 10.2 percent from last year’s NT$1.76 billion, but a monthly decline of 11 percent from the previous month’s NT$2.18 billion. Last month’s revenue was driven by Mother’s Day sales and Taipei Spring Computer Show (Softex Taipei) purchases, the company said in a statement. In the first four months of this year, PChome’s revenue jumped 16.4 percent annually to NT$8.71 billion.
ENTERTAINMENT
Cayenne revenue takes dive
Video game company Cayenne Entertainment Technology Co (紅心辣椒) on Tuesday reported an annual revenue decline of 17.06 percent to NT$35.59 million for last month. On a monthly basis, the last month’s revenue represented a slight decline from the previous month’s NT$35.67 million, according to the firm’s filing with the stock exchange. Cayenne Entertainment’s sales have dropped 27.92 percent annually to NT$151.32 million in the first four months of this year. The company is to launch a new mobile game and updates of its existing games this month in an effort to boost sales performance, it said in a statement.
INTERNET
Google denies report
Google Inc yesterday denied a local media report that it would build additional research and development (R&D) centers in Taiwan. The report said the company is to invest US$1.2 billion into building a new 32 hectare R&D center in Changhua Costal Industrial Park (彰濱工業區). Google said: “We’ve had an R&D center in Taipei since 2006, with a strong and growing team, but we have no plans for additional R&D centers at this time.” Google is currently expanding its data center by constructing three more buildings in the Changhua park. The project is expected to be completed before the end of this year, according to the Industrial Development Bureau.
LOGISTICS
DHL touts new center
DHL Express yesterday announced that its new logistics service center in Kaohsiung has begun operations. The facility is expected to boost the international competitiveness of export-oriented industries based in southern Taiwan, the company said. Built at a cost of NT$97 million, the advanced facility is capable of processing 1,000 parcels per hour, with a daily capacity of 50 tonnes. The company said that the new facility complements the Kaohsiung City Government’s plan to expand the city’s port, and that it will aid local companies’ efforts at overcoming a persistent slump in global demand and falling exports.
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