TECHNOLOGY
Ennoconn buying into health
Industrial PC maker Ennoconn Corp (樺漢科技) on Friday said it plans to acquire a 19.5 percent stake in medical display supplier Diva Laboratories Ltd (鈺緯科技) for NT$279 million (US$9.43 million), as the company moves to expand its presence in the healthcare market. Ennoconn, a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), said it plans to purchase 14.5 million Diva shares at NT$19.3 per share via private placement. Diva makes display products for global brands on a contract basis.
SOLAR
Pan Jit to book impairments
Diode maker Pan Jit International Inc (強茂) on Friday said it would book asset impairment charges of between NT$1.4 billion and NT$1.5 billion at the company’s solar cell and photovoltaic module subsidiary in China’s Jiangsu Province due to years of losses. Pan Jit said the company set up Jiangsu Aide Solar Energy Technology Co (江蘇艾德) 10 years ago, but only made a profit in its first year. The charges are estimated to erode Pan Jit’s earnings by NT$3.35 to NT$3.59 per share, said Pan Jit, which posted earnings of NT$1.63 per share in the first three quarters of last year.
INSURANCE
Zurich leaves Taiwan market
Swiss group Zurich Insurance Group AG has officially retreated from the Taiwanese market, as the company on Monday last week dissolved its local life insurance unit, Zurich International Life Taiwan Branch Ltd (台灣蘇黎世人壽). The move came after the company in 2016 sold its non-life-insurance assets in Taiwan to Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車). The Financial Supervisory Commission on Thursday said that no disputes were found among the insurer and its customers, as all effective policies had matured on Dec. 22 last 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
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