GAMING
Cayenne to list in Taipei
Mobile game distributor Cayenne Ark Mobile Co Ltd (辣椒方舟), an affiliate of Cayenne Entertainment Technology Co (紅心辣椒), is to list today on the Taipei Exchange’s Emerging Stock Board at NT$20 per share. Cayenne Ark chairman Joe Deng (鄧潤澤) yesterday told a news conference that the company has a challenging year ahead due to intensified market competition and the hit mobile game Pokemon Go. The company reported net losses of NT$15.05 million (US$476,900) in the first half of this year, compared with a net income of NT$16.03 million during the same period last year. Deng said the company plans to introduce a new mobile game in Taiwan at the end of this year and four more games next year, making them Cayenne Ark’s main growth drivers next year. Deng declined to offer a revenue forecast for next year.
COSMETICS
Namchow inks skincare MOU
Cooking oil manufacturer Namchow Chemical Industrial Co (南僑化學工業) yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Metal Industries Research and Development Center (金屬工業研究發展中心), marking a further step into the natural skincare market. Under its self-owned brand, the company hopes to distribute high-priced cosmetic products with natural ingredients from Taiwan to global customers, Namchow chairman Alfred Chen (陳飛龍) said at a signing ceremony in Taipei, without giving a schedule.
STEELMAKERS
CSC appoints chairman
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s largest steel mill, said in a press release yesterday that the company’s board approved the appointment of Wong Chao-tung (翁朝棟) as chairman. The board also named vice president Liu Jih-gang (劉季剛) to take over Wong’s position as president. In a separate release, the company reported pretax profit for the first nine months of this year of NT$16.67 billion, soaring 40 percent from the same period last year, after pretax profit of NT$8.83 billion last quarter, its highest quarterly level this year.
SOCIETY
Kaoshiung to host expo
The Maker Wisdom Expo, an event that allows artists and organizations to showcase their work and interact with others, is to take place at the Chung Cheng Martial Arts Stadium in Kaohsiung on Nov. 19 and Nov. 20, organizers said yesterday. Now in its second year, the expo is to have 125 booths set up by 65 schools and businesses for exhibitions, presentations and demonstrations, the Kaohsiung City Government said.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Line reports Q3 profit
Line Corp reported third-quarter profit and revenue that missed analysts’ estimates as the company pushes into advertising to offset slowing growth in its user base. Operating profit was ¥4.9 billion (US$47 million) in the period ended Sept. 30, according to calculations based on nine-month numbers released by Line yesterday, while sales reached ¥35.9 billion in the period. Line said its monthly active users totaled 220 million as of last month, a 3.5 percent increase from a year earlier. That was slightly lower than the previous quarter, when subscribers increased 4.1 percent, and the slowest growth in at least two years. Line expects annual sales to increase in the period ending Dec. 31, helped by advertising revenue. The company did not give a full-year earnings forecast.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to