SEMICONDUCTORS
Book-to-bill ratio falls
The book-to-bill ratio for North America-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers, such as Applied Materials Inc, decreased to 1.1 last month from 1.15 in March, statistics released yesterday by Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) showed. A ratio of 1.1 means that US$110 worth of orders were received for every US$100 of product billed in the month. It was the fifth consecutive month that the ratio was greater than one, which implies a more optimistic outlook. “Bookings reached their highest levels in eight months and billings levels also significantly improved in April,” SEMI Taiwan president Terry Tsao (曹世綸) said in a statement. “The data reflect strong investments in 3D NAND and in China.”
BANKING
M1B and M2 rates rise
Monthly growth rates of the monetary aggregates M1B and M2 grew 0.03 percent and 0.12 percent respectively last month, the central bank said on Tuesday. Affected by higher growth in currency held by the public and passbook savings deposits, the annual growth rate of M1B, a narrow measure of the amount of money in circulation, last month rose 6.3 percent from a year earlier. However, the annual growth rate of the broader M2 monetary measurement — which includes M1B, time deposits, foreign-currency deposits and mutual funds — decreased to 4.65 percent mainly because of slower growth in bank loans and investments, the central bank said. For the first four months of this year, the average annual growth rates of M1B and M2 were 6.37 percent and 5.06 percent respectively, it said.
COMPUTERS
Advantech dividend approved
Shareholders of Advantech Co (研華科技), a Taiwanese industrial PC maker, yesterday approved a company plan to distribute a cash dividend of NT$6 per share. Another proposal to issue employee stock options to help retain talent in the firm also got the green light from shareholders, the company said. The provider of embedded computing services reported net profit of NT$1.31 billion (US$40.12 million) and revenue of NT$10.1 billion in the first quarter, beating market expectations because of stronger sales from Internet of Things-related business. Advantech is targeting an annual growth rate of 15 percent in business revenue.
VIRTUAL REALITY
HTC shares soar 9.96%
HTC Corp (宏達電) shares soared 9.96 percent yesterday on the Taiwan Stock Exchange after Goldman Sachs Group Inc initiated its coverage with a “conviction” buy, citing HTC’s emerging virtual reality (VR) business. Goldman said in a note that VR will be the next major product cycle and create an US$80 billion market by 2025. If the company’s VR strategy is executed properly, HTC could be just like Apple and would make money from selling hardware and services, Goldman said. HTC shares closed at NT$74.
CHIPMAKERS
Share suspension approved
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體) and Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密) yesterday said they had received regulatory approval to suspend trading of their shares today pending the announcement of “important information,” according to company filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The companies did not elaborate. The two on Tuesday confirmed that they were in talks to create a joint-venture holding company in a bid to put an end to a nine-month ownership fight.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained