TECHNOLOGY
Google’s HTC buy approved
The Investment Commission on Friday approved Google’s purchase of a portion of HTC Corp’s (宏達電) smartphone assets, a deal announced in September. The commission said it had given the green light to Google’s application to transmit NT$33.15 billion (US$1.105 billion) into a wholly owned local unit, which will be responsible for acquiring HTC’s smartphone research and development (R&D) team and the related intellectual property. Also on Friday, the commission said it approved Gogoro Inc’s (睿能創意) third-round capital increase of US$1.8 billion, which the electric scooter maker plans to spend on marketing and R&D.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Mosel raises private capital
Memorychip maker Mosel Vitelic Inc (茂矽) said on Friday that its board has approved plans to sell 38 million shares through a private placement with the price set at NT$13.68. Mosel said Actron Technology Corp (朋程) and Pynmax Technology Co (璟茂) are two major strategic investors that will subscribe to its new shares. The company will use the proceeds to expand its manufacturing capacity and increase its working capital, Mosel said.
MACROECONOMICS
Listed firms’ revenue rises
Companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange saw their combined revenue increase 10 percent year-on-year last month, driven mainly by firms in the building material, electronics and general merchandise industries. Listed companies posted a total of NT$2.87 trillion in revenue, up NT$262.6 billion from a year earlier, the exchange said on Tuesday. Aggregate sales at the 838 firms listed on the bourse totaled NT$26.8 trillion in the first 11 months of the year, up 6.1 percent from NT$25.26 trillion a year earlier, it 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
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by