ELECTRONICS
HTC boosted by U sales
HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday reported consolidated revenue of NT$5.2 billion (US$170.16 million) for last month, a 25.41 percent increase year-on-year and 11.58 percent month-on-month due to rising demand for its new flagship U smartphones. The U series, which are priced up to NT$28,900 each, debuted in Europe, the Middle East and China last month. In the first quarter of the year, HTC’s revenue totaled NT$14.53 billion, down 1.96 percent from NT$14.82 billion in the same period last year, a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
ELECTRONICS
Lite-On posts higher revenue
Electronic components maker Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技) yesterday posted consolidated revenue of NT$19.1 billion for last month, up 19 percent month-on-month and 4 percent year-on-year. Optoelectronics, which contributed 26 percent share of the firm’s total sales, posted annual growth of about 20 percent last month, while information technology accounted for 52 percent of its sales, annual growth of more than 10 percent, Lite-On said in a statement. Thanks to stable demand from its core clients, the firm’s cumulative sales in the first three months of the year were NT$51.35 billion, a 3 percent year-on-year increase, it said.
BROKERAGES
Outlook for firms stable
The outlook for the nation’s securities firms remains stable this year, underpinned by good capital buffers, adequate risk management and ample market liquidity, Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) said in a report yesterday. “The creditworthiness of Taiwan securities firms should remain stable this year, despite challenging operating conditions,” Taiwan Ratings credit rating analyst Eunice Fan (范維華) said in the report. “These include sluggish equity market turnover, global capital market volatility and moderate economic growth in Taiwan.” Earnings at securities firms are likely to remain closely tied to the nation’s volatile equity market and remain at the low end of the range recorded over the past few years, Taiwan Ratings said. Securities firms saw their profits decline by about 25 percent last year after a 16 percent fall in 2015.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Reserves fall US$135m
The central bank’s foreign-exchange reserves stood at US$437.53 billion last month, a decrease of US$135 million month-on-month, the bank said in a statement yesterday. The central bank said the decline came as an increase in foreign assets held by domestic investors offset returns from its management of the reserves. Last month, the New Taiwan dollar appreciated by 1.04 percent against the greenback and by 6.4 percent in the first quarter, central bank data showed.
SERVICES
Growth is stable: survey
The services sector showed a stable growth in February, with an index gauging industry sentiment declining moderately from the previous month, according to a survey conducted by the Commerce Development Research Institute (商業發展研究院). The survey showed that the index fell to 103, down two points from January, the Taipei-based think tank said. The index was likely to edge down again last month, when Taiwan entered the traditional low season for tourists and exports, but the sentiment might improve this month as the four-day Tomb Sweeping Day holiday could offer a much-needed boost to the tourism and retail industries, the institute said.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained