FINANCE
Central bank board to meet
The central bank yesterday announced that it is to hold its quarterly board meeting on June 30. The bank has been widely speculated to cut interest rates again to help boost the nation’s ailing economy. As of the first quarter, the nation has seen three consecutive quarters of annual decline in GDP, mainly due to continued weakness in exports. The central bank, which has cut interest rates three times since September last year, might act again to cut rates by 12.5 basis points later this month with the discount rate dropping to 1.375 percent, Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) chief economist Rick Lo (羅瑋) said.
ELECTRONICS
HTC’s Wang sorry for losses
HTC Corp (宏達電) chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) apologized to shareholders for the net loss incurred last year, according to an annual report released yesterday. In the report, Wang acknowledged last year’s results disappointed HTC shareholders, but vowed to restructure the company’s operations to achieve a turnaround. HTC, which reported a net loss of NT$15.5 billion (US$475.3 million), or NT$18.79 per share, last year, is to hold its annual general meeting on June 24.
HOSPITALITY
Humble House pays dividend
My Humble House Hospitality Management Consulting Co (寒舍餐旅) yesterday passed a cash dividend payout of NT$2.54 per share at the company’s annual general meeting in Taipei, after shareholders signed off on the company’s financial report for last year. My Humble House, which owns the five-star Sheraton Grand Taipei Hotel (台北喜來登大飯店) and Le Meridien Taipei (台北寒舍艾美酒店), posted NT$303 million in net income last year, or earnings of NT$3 per share, with a revenue of NT$4.45 billion.
CATERING
TransAsia targets NT$1.2bn
TransAsia Catering Services Ltd (復興空廚), a subsidiary of Taiwan Secom Co (中興保全), yesterday said it aims to achieve an annual revenue of NT$1.2 billion this year, compared with NT$860 million last year. The catering and support services provider said it also plans to expand its distribution channels to tap the baked goods market, hoping to open up to 200 outlets in three years.
AUTOMAKERS
Sales beat expectations
New vehicle sales rose a stronger-than-expected 9.9 percent year-on-year and 8.4 percent month-on-month to 37,878 units last month, data compiled by local motor vehicle offices showed on Wednesday. In the first five months of the year, total vehicle sales increased 2 percent from a year earlier to 179,458 units, data showed. Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車) continued to lead the market, selling 55,694 cars in the first five months with a market share of 31 percent, data showed.
COMPONENTS
Ichia revenue up 17%
Handset keypad maker Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉科技) said that revenue rose 17 percent last month from April, boosted by increased demand for its flexible printed-circuit integrated components for automotive products. Revenue reached NT$513 million last month, including NT$373 million in sales of flexible printed-circuit integrated components and NT$153 million from mechanical integrated components, according to the company’s statement filed with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Wednesday. Last month’s revenue declined 17 percent from a year earlier.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts