ECONOMY
National net worth rises
Average net worth per household was NT$11.23 million (US$372,397) at the end of 2015, the highest in five years, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported yesterday. The figure represented an increase of NT$310,000 from 2014 and was mainly due to increases in property value and financial assets, the DGBAS said. In 2015, gross national wealth rose 4.99 percent annually to NT$244.11 trillion, with increases of NT$6.83 trillion in property values and NT$4.5 trillion in financial assets, the DGBAS said. Meanwhile, the average financial liability per household was NT$1.7 million, an increase of NT$20,000, or 1.32 percent, from the previous year, the DGBAS said.
UTILITIES
Water restrictions to ease
Phase one water rationing measures in areas supplied by the Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) are likely to be lifted at an emergency response meeting on nationwide water supply today after rainfall in the nation’s north, Minister of Economic Affairs Lee Chih-kung (李世光) said yesterday. With the Central Weather Bureau predicting more rain in the next few days, Lee said southern Taiwan might maintain phase one rationing instead of implementing stricter phase two rationing.
BANKING
Pre-tax earnings fall
Pre-tax earnings by domestic banks fell 10 percent annually to NT$79.29 billion in the first quarter due to lagging growth in lending, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday. In particular, earnings by China-based branches in the period fell 34.4 percent to NT$770 million due to foreign-exchange losses, as well as increased allowances for doubtful accounts, the commission said. Non-performing loans among the nation’s 38 banks last month rose by NT$1 billion to NT$77.6 billion, translating to a non-performing loan ratio of 0.3 percent, up 0.01 percentage points from the previous month, it said. Total outstanding loans last month rose by NT$74.9 billion to NT$26.2 trillion, it said.
CHIPMAKERS
Faraday income increases
Faraday Technology Corp (智原), a fabless chip designing service and silicon patent provider, yesterday said net income last quarter increased sharply to NT$521 million, or NT$2.12 per share, from the previous quarter’s NT$31 million, or NT$0.12 per share, as the company booked a divestment gain of NT$575 million by selling its surveillance business to Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠), the nation’s biggest supplier of driver ICs for LCD panels. In the first quarter, Faraday reported an operating loss of NT$16 million, compared with an operating profit of NT$14 million the prior quarter, while sales were down 6.4 percent to NT$1.43 billion and gross margin increased 1.1 percentage points to 45.3 percent.
ELECTRONICS
Parade reports income rise
Parade Technologies Ltd (譜瑞), a leading video display and interface IC supplier, on Wednesday reported net income increased 10.75 percent annually to US$11.95 million in the first quarter, with earnings per share of US$0.16. Gross margin was within the company’s guidance at 40 percent in the first quarter, the company said. Parade said sales for this quarter would likely reach between US$79 million and US$86 million, compared with the previous quarter’s US$75.64 million, with contributions from standard-plus timing controllers, high-speed interfaces and source ICs.
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],”
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
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