ELECTRONICS
Inventec says revenue up
Contract electronics maker Inventec Corp (英業達) yesterday said that revenue last month expanded by 1.08 percent year-on-year to NT$34.55 billion (US$1.15 billion) on greater shipments of commercial notebook computers and “smart” devices. That brought cumulative sales in the first five months of this year to NT$168.99 billion, up 3.36 percent from NT$163.48 billion in the same period last year, the company said. Inventec said growth momentum of its notebooks and smartphones would continue this month, while server shipments would pick up on Chinese demand.
PETROCHEMICAL
OUC to pay NT$0.2 dividend
Shareholders of Oriental Union Chemical Corp (OUC, 東聯化學), a petrochemical arm of Far Eastern Group (遠東集團), yesterday approved a dividend of NT$0.2 per share. The producer of ethylene glycol and specialty chemicals said a production improvement at its plant in Kaohsiung’s Linyuan District (林園) and the completion of a new plant in Yangzhou, China, have boosted ethylene glycol production capacity from 300,000 tonnes to 850,000 tonnes per year and raised its competitiveness.
DISPLAY MAKERS
AUO monthly shipments rise
LCD panel maker AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) on Wednesday said that its large-size panel shipments last month recovered to 9.15 million units, up 5.66 percent from April, while shipments of smaller panels stayed flat at 12.75 million units. Revenue last month reached NT$28.063 billion, up 4.73 percent year-on-year and 1.03 percent month-on-month, the firm said. As revenue missed market expectations, Capital Securities Corp (群益證券) yesterday revised down its second-quarter revenue forecast for the firm to NT$84.729 billion, down 4.32 percent from the first quarter.
PHARMACEUTICALS
TaiGen books China revenue
TaiGen Biopharmaceuticals Holdings Ltd (太景醫藥研發控股) on Wednesday announced that it would book revenue of 117 million yuan (US$17.22 million) as its partnership with China’s YiChang HEC ChangJiang Pharmaceutical Co Ltd (HEC, 宜昌東陽光長江藥業) reaches a milestone. TaiGen received the payment for contributing furaprevir (TG-2349), a vital component of a cocktail treatment for hepatitis C that it is developing with its Chinese partner. TaiGen said it is scheduled to book another 116 million yuan from HEC for a stake transfer this quarter.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
TTFB reports rising sales
Tai Tong Food & Beverage Group (TTFB, 瓦城泰統集團), which operates six restaurant chains, including Thai Town Cuisine (瓦城泰式料理), on Wednesday reported sales of NT$363.28 million for last month, up 8.85 percent year-on-year and 11.4 percent month-on-month. Sales in the first five months of the year rose 6.34 percent year-on-year to NT$1.74 billion, TTFB said.
CHIPMAKERS
Micron head visits Taiwan
Sanjay Mehrotra, the new president and CEO of Micron Technology Inc, yesterday visited Taiwan as the first stop of his tour of Micron’s manufacturing sites after taking his new role a month ago. In a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Mehrotra emphasized the strategic value of Taiwan within Micron’s global footprint. He also reiterated the company’s commitment to long-term investment in the nation, including the cultivation of local talent and the construction of a new back-end fab in Taichung this year.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts