BANKING
Central bank sells bonds
The central bank yesterday sold NT$30 billion (US$935 million) of 20-year Treasury bonds, with the interest rate reaching 1.198 percent, lower than the 1.36 percent of the similar-maturity debt it sold in April. The yield of 1.198 percent marks the lowest level in the central bank’s history, indicating that liquidity in the market is still abundant. The central bank, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Finance to auction the 20-year bonds, said yesterday’s sale attracted bids for 1.85 times the amount of debt on offer. The banking industry accounted for 41.84 percent of the winning bids, followed by the securities sector at 35.83 percent, the insurance industry at 20 percent and the bills sector at 2.33 percent, the central bank said in a statement.
COMMUNICATIONS
Browave banking on Q3
Fiber-optic communications component maker Browave Corp (波若威) yesterday said its revenue for the third quarter would be higher than the second quarter’s NT$923.7 million due to the arrival of the industry’s traditional peak season. The company expects the growth momentum to be sustained in the fourth quarter and aims to grow its full-year revenue by 30 percent from a year earlier to NT$3.2 billion, chairman Liao De-ming (廖德銘) told an investors’ conference in Taipei. In the first half, the company reported revenue of NT$1.61 billion, company data showed.
AUTOMAKERS
No price hike: Yulon-Nissan
Yulon-Nissan Motor Co (裕隆日產), the nation’s third-largest seller of cars, has no plans to increase vehicle prices in the near term, despite the appreciation of the yen, Yulon-Nissan president Tsay Wen-rong (蔡文榮) said yesterday on the sidelines of a new car launch. Tsay said the company would first assess the situation in the market before moving to increase prices, adding that a potential increase could impede consumption at a time when the nation’s economy remains weak. In the first six months of the year, total new car sales reached 222,209 units, up 2.3 percent from the same period last year, according to data compiled by local motor vehicle offices.
ELECTRONICS
Foxconn hires in India
Foxconn Technology Group (富士康) has reportedly hired most of the about 3,000 employees at Nokia Oyj’s manufacturing plant in Sriperumbudur, India, which was forced to suspend operations last year due to a tax dispute with the local government. India’s Economic Times quoted a Foxconn official as saying that the company had already offered training sessions for its employees at the Nokia plant. Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) in Taiwan, yesterday declined to comment on the report.
CHIPMAKERS
Infineon to buy Wolfspeed
Infineon Technologies AG, Europe’s biggest chipmaker by revenue, has agreed to buy Cree Inc’s Wolfspeed Power unit for US$850 million to expand into compound semiconductors and power-management chips. Infineon, which makes chips for sensors, radars and security systems, is to buy Wolfspeed in an all-cash deal, the Neubiberg, Germany-based company said in a statement yesterday. Infineon, which is also betting on autonomous-driving technology to boost revenue, said the deal would help its Internet of Things business. Infineon bought El Segundo, California-based International Rectifier in 2014 to expand its existing automaker customer base to commercial and agricultural manufacturers.
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
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