EQUITIES
Domestic investors return
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday said that the return of domestic investors to the local bourse has helped pushed the TAIEX past the 10,000-point mark. The rally saw significant support from domestic investors instead of foreign institutional investors, Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director Chang Chen-shan (張振山) told a news conference in Taipei. He said that foreign institutional investors had accounted for 30.4 percent of trading, but the figure dipped to 27 percent at the end of last month.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai still eyeing the US
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and its Japanese subsidiary, Sharp Corp, have not ruled out the possibility of setting up a semiconductor plant in the US, according to Kyodo News. Citing executives from Sharp, Kyodo News yesterday said that the semiconductor investment plan in the US could go ahead as long as Hon Hai and Sharp win a bid to acquire memorychip assets from Toshiba Corp. Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) visited the White House late last month and confirmed that the company is in talks with US authorities to invest in the US. Hon Hai said it would make an official announcement after the US investment plan is finalized.
ELECTRONICS
Phison net profit soars
Phison Electronics Corp (群聯) yesterday posted an all-time high net profit of NT$1.28 billion (US$42.36 million) for last quarter, supported by strong demand for NAND flash memory chips. Growth in solid-state-drive data storage and better-margin memory chips used in cars and industrial devices also helped boost earnings, Phison said. On an annual basis, net profit surged 38 percent from NT$927 million, with earnings per share rising to NT$6.50 from NT$4.71 last year. Phison said it booked a foreign-exchange loss of NT$347 million last quarter due to a strong New Taiwan dollar.
SEMICONDUCTORS
TSMC monthly sales slump
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday reported a more than 30 percent month-on-month drop in sales for last month. In a statement, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said that its consolidated sales for last month stood at NT$56.87 billion, down 33.8 percent from a month earlier and down 14.9 percent from a year earlier. Last month’s figure was the lowest level in 37 months, as the second quarter is a traditional slow season for the global semiconductor industry. Even so, TSMC said that it has maintained its second-quarter sales forecast, which ranged between NT$213 billion and NT$216 billion. Based on its second-quarter guidance, TSMC is likely to post monthly revenue of NT$78.1 billion to NT$79.6 billion for this month and next month on average, bouncing back from last month’s low.
AUTOMAKERS
Chinese sales plummet
Chinese auto sales shrank last month as demand for most types of vehicles wilted, the Chinese Association of Automobile Manufacturers said yesterday. Sales of passenger cars fell 3.7 percent last month over the same period the previous year to 1.7 million. That was down from 1.7 percent sales growth in March. Total vehicle sales, including buses and trucks, fell 2.2 percent from a year earlier to 2.1 million. “Car production and sales fell significantly last month,” the association said in a statement. “Automotive market demand was weak.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last