TECHNOLOGY
HTC stays silent on sale
HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday declined to comment on a report saying it is negotiating a deal with Alphabet Inc’s Google over its smartphone business before the end of this year at the earliest. The Chinese-language Commercial Times reported that HTC might sell its smartphone business, including its handset research and development (R&D) team, to Google by the end of this year at the earliest after HTC last month reported net losses of NT$1.95 billion (US$64.87 million) for last quarter, its ninth consecutive quarterly loss. The possible sale does not include the firm’s virtual reality (VR) business, as HTC does not control the key tracking and display technologies, which limited the VR R&D team’s value, the report said, citing industry sources.
RESTAURANTS
TTFB revenue rises 6.6%
The Tai Tong Food & Beverage Group (TTFB, 瓦城泰統集團) yesterday reported revenue of NT$385.6 million for last month, up 6.6 percent year-on-year from NT$361.8 million. The company, which operates Thai Town Cuisine (瓦城泰式料理) and five other restaurant chains, said in a statement that cumulative revenue for the first eight months of this year rose 5.1 percent annually to NT$2.8 billion. The company said it expects a new outlet in Shanghai to start contributing revenue in the coming months.
TECHNOLOGY
Strong showing by IC makers
Taiwanese integrated circuit (IC) designers’ revenues appeared better than expected for last month, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing several firms’ filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. For instance, revenue of Parade Technologies Ltd (譜瑞), a leading video display and interface IC supplier, and RichWave Technology Corp (立積), which designs radio frequency ICs, set new monthly highs at NT$936 million and NT$237 million respectively. Fingerprint sensor provider Egis Technology Inc (神盾) also posted record-high sales of NT$544 million. However, PixArt Imaging Inc (原相科技) which designs image sensor ICs, saw sales decline 9.1 percent monthly to NT$443 million due to a lack of revenue contribution from its non-recurring engineering business.
REAL ESTATE
Land Bank eases mortgages
Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) on Tuesday said it has eased mortgage terms on urban renewal projects with qualified applications able to borrow 100 percent of loans. Renewal projects involving buildings 30 years or older or declared dangerous by the government can apply for loans of 100 percent of their assessed worth for up to five years, the state-owned lender said. Average loan-to-value ratios hover at about 70 percent for land financing, 80 percent for first homes and 60 percent for luxury housing. The easing came as the government encourages urban renewal, but few builders are interested because such projects are time-consuming.
DOMESTIC SERVICES
Sentiment falls one point
The domestic service sector’s momentum remained steady in July, although an index gauging industry sentiment declined moderately from the previous month, falling to 104 from 105, a survey conducted by the Commerce Development Research Institute (商業發展研究院) found. The think tank on Tuesday said that the index was likely to remain at 104 or 105 for last month and this month during the traditional high season for electronics and exports.
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
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
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],”
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