LEASING
Chailease net income rises
Chailease Holding Co (中租控股) yesterday announced that aggregate net income in the first half gained 3 percent year-on-year to NT$3.53 billion (US$109.83 million). Earnings per share in the first six months were NT$3.1. Net income last month soared to NT$760 million, 10 percent higher than a year ago, and set a new record for June, the company said. Profits in the second quarter posted a 18 percent sequential growth on the back of rising fees and interest income from its aircraft leasing operations in Taiwan and China. The company said that earnings in the second half are likely to be driven by more commercial aircraft leasing in Taiwan and expectations of robust financing needs by small to medium-sized enterprises in China, as well as new business from its new subsidiaries in Southeast Asian markets.
BOOKSTORES
Eslite to keep one 24/7 store
Eslite Spectrum Corp (誠品生活), which operates bookstores, shopping malls and restaurants, yesterday said it would keep at least one bookstore in Taipei that is open around the clock, if its bookstore on Dunhua S Road in Taipei closes after its lease expires in 2020. Eslite chairman Wu Ching-yu (吳清友) told reporters that as much as the firm would like to keep its bookstore on Dunhua S Road, it is not up to the company if the owner of the Dunhua Financial Building decides not to renew the lease for the bookstore with Eslite. However, if that happens, Eslite plans to extend the business hours of one of its bookstores in Taipei to 24 hours a day, Eslite vice chairwoman Mercy Wu (吳旻潔) said.
BANKING
CTBC to launch hackathon
CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) yesterday said the company would begin receiving submissions for a hackathon aimed at discovering new innovations in financial technology (fintech). The company said that it would allow participants access to the application programming interface of its banking subsidiary, CTBC Bank Co Ltd (中國信託銀行), and that the top three winners in the contest would receive a total of NT$600,000 in cash prizes. The hackathon is a joint effort between CTBC and the Epoch Foundation’s (時代基金會) Garage+ start-up incubation program. Participants are to compete in peer-to-peer payments and lending, investment and personal bookkeeping tools, organizers said.
COSMETICS
TAITRA eyes Southeast Asia
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), the nation’s main trade promotion agency, yesterday announced its beauty products promotion plan targeting Southeast Asian markets with 11 related companies, including skincare brand Dr Wu (達爾膚生醫科技) and Yuan Soap (阿原肥皂). In the second half, the council plans to increase brand awareness and seek sales channels in the markets, especially Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, it said.
STOCK MARKET
Taiwanese shares fall
Shares in Taiwan yesterday edged lower after a plunge midway through the trading session, but bargain hunting in select large-cap electronics stocks kept the weighted index close to 9,000 points, dealers said. The fall was driven by fears that foreign institutional investors would move funds out of the nation after scaling down their net purchase of shares in the market on Friday last week. The TAIEX closed down 0.24 percent at 8,991.67.
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