SEMICONDUCTORS
Macronix sets dividend
Memorychip maker Macronix International Co (旺宏電子) on Friday said its board had approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$1 per common share after the firm swung into the black last year after five unprofitable years. The proposed dividend, which would be the first since 2012, represents a 2.09 percent dividend yield based on the company’s stock price of NT$47.9. Macronix made NT$5.52 billion (US$188.84 million) in net profit last year, with earnings per share of NT$3.12. The board also approved a program to raise funds by issuing 360 million common shares among overseas investors, the firm said.
ELECTRONICS
PCB industry sees growth
Total production value of the nation’s printed circuit board (PCB) industry is expected to increase 4 percent this year, following 9.5 percent growth to NT$610 billion last year, Taiwan Printed Circuit Association chairman Rick Wu (吳永輝) said on Friday at a public event. Wu, who is president of flexible PCB producer Career Technology Co (嘉聯益), thanked the association’s members for supporting it as it enters its 20th year. Issues such as “smart manufacturing” and “global competence” would be key to the industry’s future, he said.
FINANCE
Promotion, dividend set
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) on Friday said that it had appointed senior vice president Huang Min-yi (黃敏義) to serve as president, replacing Catherine Lee (李紀珠), who would continue to serve as vice chairman. It also announced that its board had approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$0.35 per common share and plus a stock dividend of 1.5 percent. The cash dividend will be the firm’s highest in 10 years.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
A new worry has been rippling across the stock market lately: Entire businesses, not just their employees, might be thrown out of work. While most economists say fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) job apocalypse are overblown, seismic shifts have happened in the past after big tech breakthroughs. The IT revolution of the 1990s led to a surge in productivity that sped up the US economy for several years. It also rendered companies or even industries largely redundant — from travel agents and stockbrokers to classified advertising and newspapers, or video rental stores. Economists expect AI would deliver higher productivity,
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