Companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange last year saw their combined profit increase 15.7 percent year-on-year to NT$2.19 trillion (US$75.2 billion), a record high, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing statistics from the two exchanges.
Due to a recovery in the global economy, most industries posted better results last year, it said.
Apart from the semiconductor and electronics industries, non-tech industries, including cement, plastics and steel, also fared strongly last year, the newspaper said.
Financial holding companies also reported combined net profits of NT$297.1 billion, a record high, as rising asset prices and increasing dividend income helped offset the negative effects of foreign-exchange losses and bad debts because of a syndicated loan to troubled Ching Fu Shipbuilding Co (慶富造船), the report said.
Financially troubled Sino-American Electronics Co Ltd (華美電子) was the only company among the 1,663 listed firms that failed to meet the deadline on Friday last week for reporting its financial results for the fourth quarter of last year to the stock exchange regulators, the newspaper said.
Among all listed firms, 595 companies, or 35 percent, reported that their net profits grew from the previous year, with 43 companies seeing their profits hit the NT$10 billion mark.
Thirty-six companies reported that their earnings per share hit new record highs and 70 companies posted annual earnings that exceed their paid-in capital. They included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Largan Precision Co (大立光), St Shine Optical Co Ltd (精華光學), MediaTek Inc (聯發科) and Yageo Corp (國巨).
Contract chipmaker TSMC was the most profitable company, with its net profit growing 2.6 percent to NT$343.1 billion last year.
Camera lens maker Largan reported the highest earnings per share of NT$193.65 among all listed firms, while Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, topped the list with the largest amount of cash or cash equivalent assets at NT$642.4 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
For this year, aggregate profits by all listed firms are forecast to grow by 8 to 14 percent to reach as high as NT$2.4 trillion, the newspaper said, quoting estimates made by institutional investors.
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