SOFTWARE
Microsoft names manager
Microsoft Corp yesterday said it has named Ken Sun (孫基康), former president of Schneider Electric Taiwan Co (施耐德), to serve as the general manager of its local branch with immediate effect. Sun is to oversee the company’s operations and strategies in Taiwan, Microsoft said in a statement. Microsoft vice president of the greater China region Davis Tsai (蔡恩全), who has served as the acting general manager at the Taiwan branch since the beginning of July, will assist Sun with the transition, Microsoft said.
UTILITIES
No power price hike expected
Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) yesterday said that a planned pay raise at Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is not expected to affect electricity rates next year, as the increase is estimated to account for a “very” small portion of Taipower’s operating costs. “It [the percentage] is as small as a peanut,” Shen said before a Ministry of Economic Affairs weekly meeting, without elaborating. Taipower said it has not yet started its administrative procedure for the pay raise.
CHIPMAKERS
Adata begins buyback
Adata Technology Co (威剛科技), the nation’s biggest memory module maker, yesterday began to buy back its own shares from the open market in a bid to protect shareholders’ interests. The company plans to purchase 6 million of its shares at between NT$54 and NT$113.6 per share, Adata said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Wednesday. The scheme is to run through Nov. 13 and the repurchased share will be distributed to employees, the firm said. Adata shares ended 1.94 percent higher at NT$78.7 in Taipei trading yesterday.
GAMING
XPEC to discuss plans
Troubled game developer XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技) yesterday said it plans to hold an extraordinary general meeting on Nov. 29 to elect a new board of directors and discuss contingency plans for the company’s future development. XPEC is to be delisted from the over-the-counter bourse on Oct. 19, the Taipei Exchange said on Friday last week after the firm failed to elect a new board of directors and provided no workable measures to improve its financial condition.
MOBILE PHONES
IPhone orders soar
Preorders for two of the latest iPhone models have soared to almost 10,000 since Wednesday evening, Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) said in a press release yesterday, with the orders split evenly between the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus, and gold remaining the most popular color. Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信) has not disclosed how many orders it has received. The two iPhone 8 models are to be officially released in stores across Taiwan on Friday next week.
TAXES
Revenue reaches NT$1.5tn
The government collected NT$1.5 trillion (US$49.82 billion) in tax revenue during the first eight months of the year, up 2.3 percent from the same period a year earlier, data released by the Ministry of Finance on Monday showed. Among the main sources of tax revenue were value-added taxes (NT$241.4 billion), corporate income taxes (NT$308.5 billion), personal income taxes (NT$387.0 billion), excise taxes (NT$117.6 billion), tobacco surcharges (NT$26.6 billion) and land value increment taxes (NT$61.5 billion).
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