AIRLINES
Tigerair unveils new routes
Tigerair Taiwan (台灣虎航) yesterday announced new flights from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Macau, Sendai, Japan, and Daegu, South Korea, to meet rising demand during the peak year-end holiday season. In response to Macau’s rising popularity, more flights are to be added on top of 52 weekly flights, the budget subsidiary of China Airlines (中華航空) said. The new flights are to be offered throughout Christmas this year and the Lunar New Year holiday next year, Tigerair said. It said that Daegu is renowned for its autumn leaves, while Sendai is its first destination in Japan’s northeast, from which visitors can easily access nearby cities such as Tokyo.
BANKING
CDIC to factor in security
The government-run Central Deposit Insurance Corp (CDIC, 中央存款保險公司) yesterday said that it would in two years begin to factor in information security into premiums and fees it charges banks. The announcement comes in the aftermath of an automated teller machine heist at state-run First Commercial Bank (第一銀行). CDIC charges insurance fees on banks’ deposits based on their risk profile.
BANKING
Mega Financial ratings hold
Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) yesterday said its ratings of “twAA+” and “twA-1+” for Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) would remain unchanged after US regulators ordered the state-run company to pay a massive fine for violations of money laundering regulations by its New York banking branch. Given its profitability, Mega Financial would be able to withstand the US$180 million fine, the credit agency said, adding that the amount is equivalent to one-quarter of the company’s profits last year. The company, which leads its domestic peers in overseas presence, should be able to improve its regulatory compliance overseas as it continues to expand abroad, the agency said. However, the latest credit evaluation has not been finalized, and the final decision will require the approval of internal committees, the agency said.
TELECOMS
APT launches maintenance
Asia Pacific Telecom Co (APT, 亞太電信), a telecom arm of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday launched handset maintenance services for a minimum flat rate of NT$98. The charge is to vary in accordance with subscribers’ devices. To receive the service, subscribers must pay a maximum fee of NT$258 per month for an iPhone 6S. The service is to carry a two-year service contract. During the two-year period, if a subscriber’s smartphone is damaged beyond repair, they can receive a new replacement at a significant discount from retail prices.
ENTERTAINMENT
XPEC shares tumble 9.95%
Game developer XPEC Entertainment Inc’s (樂陞科技) shares yesterday plunged 9.95 percent to NT$89.6 amid concerns on the delayed payment of NT$4.86 billion (US$152.7 million) from a public tender offer initiated by a peer. Bai Chi Gan Tou Digital Entertainment Co (百尺竿頭數位娛樂) in June announced plans to acquire a 25.71 percent stake in XPEC by purchasing 30 million common shares at NT$128 per share. Investors with more than 60 million XPEC shares have heeded Bai Chi Gan Tou’s public tender offer, exceeding the Japanese company’s share acquisition target by 60.5 percent. Bai Chi Gan Tou yesterday announced that the public tender offer period has been extended by five business days, with the deal to conclude on Aug. 31.
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],”
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
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