SMARTPHONES
HTC posts sales decline
Smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday posted an annual decline of 37.41 percent in sales to NT$6.75 billion (US$208.32 million) last month, marking the 14th straight month of annual decline in revenues. On a monthly basis, the result represented a 17.56 percent monthly increase from the previous month’s NT$5.75 billion, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company’s combined revenues totaled NT$27.32 billion in the first five months of this year, plummeting 58.51 percent from a year earlier, the filing said. HTC chief financial officer Chang Chia-lin (張嘉臨) told investors last month that the company expects its smartphone business to improve this quarter and hopefully to break even in the next quarter.
STOCK EXCHANGE
Taiwan shares close higher
Shares in Taiwan closed slightly higher yesterday amid thin turnover as investors remained reluctant to pick up stocks ahead of the four-day Dragon Boat Festival holiday, dealers said. In addition, there have been growing concerns that foreign investors would move funds from Taiwan to China if Chinese stocks, known as A shares, are included in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index later this month, dealers said. The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange closed up 5.54 points, or 0.06 percent, at 8,597.11 after moving between 8,557.68 and 8,664.12. Turnover totaled NT$61.03 billion during the session.
CURRENCY
Yuan hits lowest since 2014
The yuan fell to its lowest level since November 2014 after China’s central bank strengthened the fixing by less than expected following a slump in the US dollar. The Chinese currency dropped 0.6 percent against a trade-weighted basket that includes the euro and the yen. The People’s Bank of China set the reference rate 0.5 percent stronger, compared with a 1.5 percent drop in the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index on Friday. The yuan weakened 0.2 percent to 6.5651 versus the greenback after rising 0.5 percent on Friday. “The Chinese authorities still have a weakening bias in the currency,” said Zhou Hao (周浩), a Singapore-based economist at Commerzbank AG, who had predicted the fixing would be 1 percent stronger. Goldman Sachs Group Inc last week said that the yuan weakness might trigger capital outflows and increase bets on a one-off devaluation. The yuan was likely to be a subject at bilateral talks with the US that began yesterday in Beijing, with US Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew saying on Sunday that Chinese officials need to improve monetary policy communication. The Chinese currency had increasingly tracked the US dollar against other peers this year after weakness in January triggered a global equity selloff amid concern the government would engineer the second devaluation since August last year to bolster growth.
STOCK MARKETS
Asian shares close lower
Asian shares were mostly lower yesterday after a US report of slowing hiring was seen as making a US Federal Reserve interest rate hike less likely. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell nearly 0.4 percent to finish at 16,580.03. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was virtually unchanged at 20,948.08 and the Shanghai Composite edged down 0.5 percent to 2,924.95. Trading was closed in South Korea for a holiday. Downbeat jobs data released on Friday last week appeared to convince traders that the Fed would keep interest rates unchanged longer than previously expected.
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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last