SEMICONDUCTORS
Demand tipped to improve
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), which makes silicon wafers, yesterday said demand for this quarter would be greater than seasonal norms, driven by rising demand for high-end smartphones. GlobalWafers said it plans to raise wafer prices in the first quarter next year to reflect the strong New Taiwan dollar and rising wafer costs. In the first three quarters of this year, the company saw its net profit contract by 30 percent to NT$1.11 billion (US$35.3 million), or earnings per share of NT$3, from NT1.58 billion, or NT$4.56 per share, during the same period a year earlier. The company also said that US regulators approved its acquisition of SunEdison Semiconductor Ltd for US$683 million.
CHIP DESIGNERS
Faraday income declines
Faraday Technology Corp (智原), a fabless chip design service and silicon patent provider, yesterday said net income last quarter plunged 50 percent from NT$125 million in the second quarter to NT$50 million. Earnings per share tumbled to NT$0.21 from NT$0.51 the previous quarter. Revenue declined 15 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$1.54 billion last quarter from NT$1.81 billion as demand weakened due to customer inventory corrections and seasonal factors, Faraday said. The company expects revenue to drop by a low-single-digit percentage this quarter as demand continues to dip. Gross margin will fall to between 40 and 43 percent this quarter, from 44.1 percent last quarter, the company said.
TRANSPORTATION
THSRC adds more services
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) yesterday said that it will operate more trains on weekends starting next month to meet high demand for weekend travel. Starting from Dec. 2, eight additional high-speed trains will be available every Friday, Saturday and Sunday — five southbound and three northbound, the company said. The new services will bring the total number of trains provided by THSRC to 960 per week, the company said, adding that bookings for the extra trains will be accepted from tomorrow.
COMPUTERS
Microsoft unveils Teams
Microsoft Inc on Wednesday unveiled its “Teams” tool for workplace collaboration, taking on rising star Slack in a hot market. Teams is built into Office 365, which includes popular applications such as Word and Excel as cloud-hosted services. Skype Internet voice and video calling service is also integrated into Teams. A preview version of Teams is available to businesses in 181 countries, with general availability expected early next year, Microsoft said.
SOUTH KOREA
Property rules to change
The government said it will take steps to ease overheating property markets in Seoul, Sejong, and some areas in Gyeonggi and Busan. Minister of Finance Yoo Il-ho said the government will limit resale of rights to buy new apartments and bolster bidding requirements for new apartments in the regions, while monitoring markets and designating anti-speculation property zones if needed. The government is to revise its rules shortly so that the changes can be applied, Yoo said. The measures came after the government in August released policies to curb household debt growth, requiring banks to impose stricter screening for some types of loans and also limiting the supply of land for housing.
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
France cannot afford to ignore the third credit-rating reduction in less than a year, French Minister of Finance Roland Lescure said. “Three agencies have downgraded us and we can’t ignore this cloud,” he told Franceinfo on Saturday, speaking just hours after S&P lowered his country’s credit rating to “A+” from “AA-” in an unscheduled move. “Fundamentally, it’s an additional cloud to a weather forecast that was already pretty gray. It’s a call for lucidity and responsibility,” he said, adding that this is “a call to be serious.” The credit assessor’s move means France has lost its double-A rating at two of the
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
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