BANKING
OBU assets grow 0.2%
The 61 offshore banking units (OBUs) of financial institutions operating in Taiwan had assets totaling US$196.679 billion last month, up US$361 million (0.2 percent) from October, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday. The OBUs of 38 local banks held US$174.13 billion in assets, while foreign banks’ 24 OBUs held US$22.549 billion, the central bank said. At the end of last month, the primary uses of funds of all OBUs were discounts and loans, amounting to US$80.572 billion, or 41 percent of total assets, the statement said.
EMPLOYMENT
Temp workers increase
Those with “atypical employment”— such as part-time, temporary and dispatch work — numbered 805,000 in May, accounting for 7.11 percent of total employment, statistics released on Thursday by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics showed. The figure represented an increase of 13,000 people from the same period last year, the agency said. Compared with 2008, the numbers increased by 155,000 people, or 6.45 percent, it added.
PAPER
TPPC appoints new chair
Taiwan Pulp and Paper Corp (TPPC, 台灣紙業) on Thursday appointed president Yu Mei-ling (余美玲) to replace Phil Hsu (許良宇) as chairman after Hsu suddenly passed away, a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said. The company did not specify the cause of Hsu’s death. Hsu, 38, was elected chairman in March following a bitter management battle between Yu and former chairman Chien Hung-wen (簡鴻文). Yu is to serve as chairman until June 27, 2020, the company said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San