AVIATION
Tigerair inks codeshare deal
Budget carriers Tigerair Taiwan Ltd (台灣虎航) and T’way Air of South Korea have entered into a codeshare agreement to provide improved services, the first time that Tigerair Taiwan has concluded such a deal with a foreign carrier. In the initial stage, the two airlines are to offer more options through codeshare flights, starting with their Taoyuan-Daegu and Taoyuan-Busan routes, with passengers having the option of booking their flight on the Web site of either airline, Tigerair Taiwan said. The agreement, which is effective from March 25 to Oct. 27, involves nine round-trip codeshare flights per week between Taoyuan and Daegu — seven runs by T’way Air and two by Tigerair Taiwan, Tigerair Taiwan said.
CHIPMAKERS
TSMC shares rise 2.35%
Shares of TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the local market, yesterday rose 2.35 percent to close at NT$261.50, with 43.29 million shares changing hands on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. TSMC’s market value surged to NT$6.78 trillion (US$230.4 billion), its highest ever, after reaching NT$6.63 trillion on Friday. Since the beginning of the year, TSMC shares have gained almost 14 percent on the main board. Meanwhile, the company is on Friday scheduled to break ground on a new foundry to produce the advanced 5-nanometer (nm) wafers at the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學工業園). The company is developing 7nm, 5nm and 3nm processes in a bid to maintain its lead in the global semiconductor market.
COMPUTERS
Acer shares hit daily record
Shares of Acer Inc (宏碁) climbed by 10 percent, a daily record, to close at NT$32.2 in Taipei trading yesterday — the company’s highest stock price since June 22, 2012. A total of 191.62 million shares of Acer were traded during the session, data from the stock exchange showed. Acer’s stock price has surged 29.33 percent in the past month, the data showed. The company’s combined net profit reached NT$1.75 billion in the first three quarters of last year, more than doubling from NT$833.31 million in the same period a year earlier, company data showed. Acer’s cumulative revenue rose 1.98 percent to NT$237.33 billion last year, it said in a filing with the stock exchange.
LABOR
Q1 recruiting push forecast
A large number of businesses have plans to recruit during the first quarter of this year, a Ministry of Labor survey released on Thursday last week showed. The survey, conducted by TaiwanJobs (台灣就業通), an online recruitment platform established by the ministry’s Workforce Development Agency, showed that 60.6 percent of local firms surveyed have plans to recruit during the first quarter, while 24.62 percent are unsure and 14.78 percent do not have openings. A total of 672 companies indicated that they are looking to hire this quarter.
TECHNOLOGY
GUC sees 55% annual growth
Global Unichip Corp (GUC, 創意電子), which designs application-specific integrated circuits, yesterday reported net profit of NT$854.81 million for last year, or earnings per share of NT$6.38, benefitting from strong demand for high-performance chips, such as those used in cryptocurrency mining. The figure represented 55 percent growth year-on-year from the company’s NT$551 million net profit in 2016. GUC shares rallied 9.95 percent to NT$337 in Taipei trading, a 10-year high.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure