Apple Inc has removed three Taiwanese companies, including leading flat-panel maker AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), from a list of its biggest suppliers, but added US semiconductor manufacturer Microchip Technology and two other firms, according to a report released by Apple on Monday.
Taiwan’s leading plastic molding manufacturer, Coxon Precise Industrial Co Ltd (谷崧精密工業), and notebook hinge maker Jarllytec Co Ltd (兆利科技) were the other two Taiwanese companies removed from the list, Apple’s annual Supplier Responsibility Report showed.
Meanwhile, Japan’s leading ceramic technology company, NGK Spark Plug Co Ltd, and Eaton Corp PLC, which was founded in the US with corporate headquarters in Dublin, were added to the list.
About 2 percent of the turnover of AUO, a supplier of LCD panels for Apple’s iPhones and iPads, comes from Apple, a Bloomberg News report said.
It has long been reported that Apple plans to switch to an organic LED (OLED) display on at least one iPhone model this year, which is why AUO fell off the list of Apple’s top 200 suppliers this year, the Bloomberg report said.
A media report last year said Apple wants to invest in AUO to develop OLED displays for use in future Apple devices.
There was also a report that Apple has employed former AUO engineers to develop new technology for panel production.
Thirty-eight Taiwanese companies remain on the list, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker; Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics maker; and chipmaker MediaTek Inc (聯發科).
The list also includes Taiwanese integrated circuit packaging and testing services firm Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (日月光半導體), smartphone camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) and passive component manufacturer Yageo Corp (國巨).
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to