SEMICONDUCTORS
ASE monthly revenue rises
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), the world’s largest chip packager and tester, yesterday said its revenue on a consolidated basis grew 9 percent annually and 9.6 percent monthly to NT$22.458 billion (US$746.24 million) last month. Revenue in the company’s core IC assembly test and material business grew 0.7 percent year-on-year and 5.5 percent month-on-month to NT$13.163 billion, the company said in a statement. Revenue in the first five months of this year rose 6.11 percent from the same period last year to NT$109.498 billion, the company said.
E-COMMERCE
PChome realizes share sale
PChome Online Inc (網路家庭), the nation’s largest online shopping Web site operator, yesterday said it has completed an issuance of 5 million new shares to fuel a NT$300 million capital injection. The company said PChome eBay Co (露天市集), a joint venture formed with eBay Inc, secured about 2.7 million new shares to become one of its major shareholders, with the remainder acquired by retail investors. PChome Online said it would use the proceeds to increase its working capital and prepare for future expansion to maintain its long-term competitiveness.
CHIPMAKERS
Adata revenue skyrockets
Adata Technology Co (威剛科技), the nation’s biggest memory module maker, yesterday said revenue last month soared 66.04 percent annually to NT$2.546 billion as supply constraints boosted prices. Cumulative revenue in the first five months of the year totaled NT$13.08 billion, up 62.38 percent from the same period last year, Adata said. Shareholders yesterday approved a dividend of NT$4 per share.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Wowprime hikes dividend
Wowprime Corp (王品集團) yesterday said shareholders approved a dividend distribution of NT$3.5 per share, compared with NT$1 last year. The restaurant operator also elected a new board of directors at its annual general meeting, with founder and former chairman Steve Day (戴勝益) no longer on the board, Wowprime said. Day retired as chairman in July 2015 to focus on EP-BOOKS (益品書屋), which he launched in July last year in Taipei.
FINANCE
Number of credit cards rises
As of the end of April, the number of credit cards in circulation in the nation reached 40.72 million, compared with 40.62 million cards at the end of March, Financial Supervisory Commission data released on Tuesday showed. The revolving balance totaled NT$107.3 billion, down 1 percent annually, with the underlying nonperforming loan ratio remaining unchanged at 0.27 percent, the data showed. Credit card spending at the end of April rose 8 percent annually to NT$183.4 billion, with total spending in the first four months of the year hitting NT$780.5 billion, up 8 percent from a year earlier, the statistics showed
BANKING
SME loans rise NT$33.1bn
Bank loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) increased NT$33.1 billion monthly to NT$5.769 trillion at the end of April, Banking Bureau data released on Tuesday showed. The underlying bad loan ratio inched up to 0.46 percent, compared with 0.44 percent at the end of March, the data showed. Total loans to SMEs extended by domestic banks in the first four months of the year edged up 0.7 percent from the same period last year, the data showed.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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