BROKERAGES
Profits up on higher turnover
Statistics compiled by the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed that local securities firms posted NT$550 million (US$17.23 million) in net profit last month, as the average daily turnover on the main board grew 14.37 percent from a month earlier to NT$75.6 billion, leading to a 17 percent increase in fee income. However, in the first 11 months of this year, securities firms posted net profit of NT$19.4 billion, compared with NT$21.2 billion the previous year, as the average daily turnover shrank by 15 percent year-on-year, the exchange said.
BANKING
Yuan deposits bounce back
Yuan deposits increased 0.16 percent month-on-month to 309.023 billion yuan (US$44.56 billion) last month, reversing a decline the previous month, driven mainly by local companies’ fund management, the central bank said yesterday. Yuan deposits at banks’ domestic banking units grew 0.62 percent to 273.65 billion yuan from the previous month, while yuan deposits at their overseas banking units declined 3.26 percent to 35.38 billion yuan, the central bank said.
CHIP TESTERS
SPIL cuts capital expenditure
Siliconware Precision Industries Co Ltd (SPIL, 矽品精密) yesterday said its board approved capital expenditure of NT$15.5 billion for next year, compared with a budget of NT$17.9 billion this year. Next year’s expenditure would be used to boost capacity and in research and development, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
BANKING
Manila branch to open today
State-run First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the banking arm of First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), is to open a branch in Manila today, when it is scheduled to obtain an operating license from the Philippine regulator, the local lender said in a statement yesterday. The branch would help extend the company’s presence in ASEAN markets in line with the government’s “new southbound policy” intended to cut the nation’s economic dependence on China. The Manila branch is mainly to focus on lending, savings, trade financing, remittances and foreign exchange, it said.
ELECTRONICS
HTC’s Vive to be No. 2 seller
HTC Corp’s (宏達電) Vive virtual-reality headset is expected to rank as the No. 2 bestseller worldwide in its category this year, advisory firm Canalys said on Wednesday. Canalys forecast HTC would ship 500,000 units this year, second only to Sony Corp’s PlayStation VR with an estimated 800,000 units. HTC’s US$100 discount on the Vive on Black Friday and Cyber Monday during the US Thanksgiving season was one of the factors that helped boost its sales in the US market, Canalys said. Another factor was HTC’s big marketing push in China, it said.
INTERNET
Meitu Inc IPO disappoints
Chinese beauty app Meitu Inc (美圖) clung to its offer price on its first day of trading, a less-than-stellar debut for Hong Kong’s largest technology initial public offering (IPO) in almost a decade. Meitu’s shares closed at HK$8.50, unchanged from the offer price set at the bottom of a marketed range. The mobile app developer and phone maker is valued at HK$35.9 billion (US$4.6 billion). Meitu expects its Internet services, which include ads and virtual gifts, to break even by the end of next year, according to its prospectus.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”