MICROECONOMICS
Foreign reserves hit high
The nation’s foreign-exchange reserves as of the end of last month hit a new high for the 12th consecutive month, largely on the back of an increase in returns on funds managed by the central bank from a month earlier. However, the euro’s depreciation against the US dollar offset the effects of higher investment returns to slow the monthly growth in the foreign reserves, the bank said on Tuesday. As of the end of last month, foreign reserves stood at US$457.19 billion, up US$467 million from the end of February. The growth was shy of a month-on-month rise of US$997 million in February, central bank data showed.
ELECTRONICS
Ichia revenue up 63 percent
Handset keypad maker Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉科技) on Tuesday posted revenue of NT$614 million (US$21 million) for last month, up 9 percent from a year ago and 63 percent from the previous month. The company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that last month’s revenue included about NT$488 million in sales of flexible printed circuit integrated components and about NT$131 million from mechanical integrated components. The company said its first-quarter revenue expanded 8 percent year-on-year to NT$1.59 billion, driven mostly by flexible printed circuit boards used in mobile devices and automotive parts.
SOLAR
GET sales down 9 percent
Green Energy Technology Inc (GET, 綠能科技), the nation’s largest solar wafer maker, on Tuesday reported sales of NT$851 million last month, up 5.8 percent month-on-month, but down 9 percent year-on-year. In the first quarter, sales totaled NT$2.62 billion, down 23.4 percent quarterly and 0.28 percent annually, it said in a statement. “In spite of concerns over industry trading barriers, pricing in the solar supply-chain is stabilizing. GET’s in-house capacity utilization was about 90 percent last month,” it said. The company plans to speed up module development with support from its parent company, Tatung Group (大同), to extend its downstream business in global high-end markets, it said.
AVIATION
Mandarin launch new route
Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) on Monday announced that it would start flying between Taichung and Tokyo in June, the first airline to fly the route. The airline is to offer a daily flight from June 14, with the outbound flight departing from Taichung International Airport at 7:30am and arriving at Narita Interntiaonal Airport at noon. Flights from Japan are to take off at 1pm and arrive in Taichung at 3:50pm, said the airline, a subsidiary of China Airlines Ltd (中華航空).
E-COMMERCE
Momo to distribute dividend
TV and online retailer Momo.com Inc (富邦媒體) has proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$8 per share, representing a payout ratio of 88.2 percent based on last year’s earnings per share (EPS) of NT$9.07. The company said it expects strengthening sales momentum for this year, after combined sales in the first two months this year grew 36.6 percent annually to NT$6.94 billion. Meanwhile, Eastern Home Shopping & Leisure Co (EHS, 東森購物) plans to distribute a cash dividend of NT$4 per share, based on EPS of NT$3.2 last year. In the first two months of this year, it posted sales of NT$2.34 billion and EPS of NT$0.9, EHS 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