MANUFACTURING
Largan revenue down 12%
Handset camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) on Saturday reported revenue of NT$5.07 billion (US$161 million) for last month, down 12 percent from a year earlier because of fewer orders of voice coil motors from Apple Inc. However, last month’s figure was 2.4 percent higher from September’s and hit the highest level in 11 months, on the back of increased demand for Apple’s iPhone 7 series and smartphones from non-Apple clients. In the first 10 months of the year, consolidated revenue totaled NT$37.7 billion, falling 18 percent from the same period of last year, Largan said.
INVESTMENT
FSC to lift investment cap
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) announced plans to lift a cap on venture capital firms’ investments in seven innovative industries the government has been promoting, a move that is expected to attract NT$17 billion in new investments. After the relaxation, the cap on venture capital investment in the industries is to increase from NT$50 million to NT$150 million, Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lu Hui-jung (呂蕙容) said.
TECHNOLOGY
Expo to focus on IoT
The Taipei Smart City Summit & Expo is to focus on the development and application of the Internet of Things (IoT), an event organizer said on Thursday last week. The Taipei Computer Association said that “smart” cities are a crucial field for the application of IoT, which is in turn a vital foundation for the realization of “intelligent” communities. The exhibition is to be held at the Taipei World Trade Center’s Nangang Exhibition Hall from Feb. 21 to Feb. 24.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by