BLOCKCHAIN
HTC making enabled phone
HTC Corp (宏達電) has announced plans to launch its first blockchain-enabled phone, Exodus. “Our vision is to expand the blockchain ecosystem by creating the world’s first phone dedicated to decentralized applications and security,” HTC said on its Web site. Exodus would support a number of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, and come with its own universal wallet and advanced security features, DigiTimes reported yesterday. Other details such as the phone’s specifications, price and launch date remain unknown.
TELECOMS
Line to keep NT$499 plan
Line Mobile Corp yesterday said it would continue to offer its flat-rate plan for NT$499 (US$16.69) a month, even though the nation’s major telecoms stopped offering similar packages on Tuesday. Line Mobile, a subsidiary of social media firm Line Corp, offers a 12-month service contract for unlimited full-speed Internet for a minimum of NT$499 per month, rather than the 30 months offered by the top three telecoms. Line Mobile launched the service in Taiwan on April 24 on Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd’s (遠傳電信) 4G network.
ELECTRONICS
Ta-i profit skyrockets 431%
Chip resistor supplier Ta-i Technology Co (大毅) yesterday reported that net profit last month increased 430.77 percent year-on-year to NT$69 million, as revenue surged 43.51 percent to NT$442 million from the same period a year earlier. Earnings per share increased 406.6 percent annually to NT$0.37, Ta-i said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Ta-i released the results at the request of the exchange regulator due to an unusual spike in its stock price in recent sessions. Its shares yesterday fell 4.89 percent to NT$79.8, but have risen more than 8 percent this week.
FOREX
Yuan deposits down 1.91%
Yuan deposits held by domestic banks, including negotiable certificates of deposit, at the end of last month edged down 1.91 percent to 315.56 billion yuan (US$49.48 billion), the central bank said on Tuesday. Yuan deposits held by banks’ domestic units totaled 285.77 billion yuan, a monthly decrease of 2.01 percent, the bank said, adding that holdings by banks’ offshore units decreased 0.89 percent to 29.79 billion yuan.
INVESTMENT
Index cut to cause outflow
A move by global index provider MSCI Inc to cut Taiwan’s weighting in its major indices is expected to lead to a foreign fund outflow of more than NT$24.2 billion, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Tuesday. However, Securities and Futures Bureau Director-General Chou Hui-mei (周惠美) downplayed the significance of the expected outflow, saying that it would account for only 0.17 percent of the market capitalization owned by foreign institutional investors in Taiwan.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Wafer shipments up 7.9%
Global silicon wafer shipments last quarter increased 7.9 percent from a year earlier in terms of surface area, the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) said on Tuesday in a news release. According to SMG’s analysis, total silicon wafer area shipments were 3,084 million square inches, up from the 2,858 million square inches shipped a year earlier. “Global silicon wafer shipment volumes started the year at historic levels,” SEMI Taiwan president Terry Tsao (曹世綸) said in the statement.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day