ELECTRONICS
Delta sales surge 39%
Power electronics and energy management supplier Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday reported that sales last month rose 39 percent month-on-month and 1 percent year-on-year to NT$18.56 billion (US$635.8 million), bringing aggregate revenue in the first quarter to NT$50.87 billion, 4 percent higher than the previous year. Last month, power electronics contributed 47 percent of sales, followed by 34 percent for infrastructure and 19 percent for automation, the company said, adding that it is upbeat on growth in its automation and automotive electronics businesses. Delta Electronics shares closed unchanged at NT$127.5 in Taipei trading yesterday.
ELECTRONICS
Lite-On posts lower Q1 sales
Electronic module supplier Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技) yesterday reported sales of NT$18.98 billion for last month, 46 percent higher than February, but a 1 percent fall compared with the previous year. Aggregate sales in the first quarter dipped 5.4 percent year-on-year to NT$48.53 billion. The company said that sales of information technology, its biggest business, representing 49 percent of revenue last month, rose nearly 10 percent on the back of robust demand for cloud computing servers, networking, power management and artificial intelligence applications. Robust demand in Middle Eastern markets also propelled a 10 percent month-on-month gain in the LED business, it said. Lite-On shares closed up 0.25 percent at NT$40.5 in Taipei trading yesterday.
APPAREL
Quang Viet revenue surges
Garment maker Quang Viet Enterprise Co (廣越) yesterday posted sales of NT$473.76 million for last month, a 54.38 percent year-on-year increase from NT$306.88 million supported by increasing orders from its global clients. That brought the company’s cumulative revenue in the first quarter to a record high of NT$1.16 billion, up 47.72 percent from NT$786.85 million the previous year. Quang Viet president Charles Wu (吳朝筆) in a statement said that the company’s profitability should improve further this year as it plans to raise the average selling price of its products by tapping into more profitable segments such as functional fabrics. The company added that it has observed an uptick in sales at its major customers Adidas, Nike, Puma, The North Face and Patagonia. Quang Viet Enterprise shares gained 2.48 percent to close at NT$124 in Taipei trading yesterday.
TRADE
Epoxy resin dumping probed
India is to initiate an anti-dumping duty investigation into epoxy resin imports from Taiwan and four other nations, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Taiwan last year ranked the third-largest exporter to India in the sector with a market share of 10.37 percent, behind South Korea and Thailand, the Bureau of Foreign Trade said in a statement. Taiwanese epoxy resin shipments to India last year totaled US$10.41 million, the bureau said, citing Global Trade Atlas statistics.
RESTAURANTS
Wowprime sales up 10.81%
Restaurant chain operator Wowprime Corp (王品) yesterday reported that sales last month rose 10.81 percent year-on-year to NT$1.3 billion from NT$1.17 billion thanks to promotional campaigns. However, the company posted cumulative revenue of NT$4.08 billion, down 0.55 percent from NT$4.1 billion. Wowprime shares closed unchanged at NT$130 in Taipei trading yesterday.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to