ENTERTAINMENT
VHQ buys into TV dramas
Singapore-based VHQ Media Holdings Ltd (威馳克媒體) yesterday said it has purchased a 70 percent stake in Beijing Jupiter Cultural Media Inc (木星時代文化傳媒), a deal that is likely contribute to its revenue and earnings this quarter. VHQ, which trades on the Taipei Exchange, said it expects that the extension into TV dramas through the 173.6 million yuan (US$25.1 million) deal would help it leverage its strengths in movie production, TV commercial visual design, special effects, post-production and 3D animation. VHQ said it remains optimistic for this year, as orderbook visibility stretches until next year.
SEMICONDUCTORS
PDC shares up on earnings
Prosperity Dielectrics Co Ltd (PDC, 信昌電子陶瓷) shares yesterday rose 9.91 percent after it reported that net profit increased 322 percent annually in August. The Taoyuan-based company, which supplies chip capacitors, chip resistors, ceramic dielectric powder, semiconductor ceramics and silver paste, said that net profit reached NT$190 million (US$6.15 million) in August, with earnings per share (EPS) of NT$1.11, compared with NT$0.26 in the same month last year. Cumulative net profit totaled NT$372 million for July and August, up 389 percent year-on-year, with EPS of NT$2.16, PDC said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
ELECTRONICS
Parade approves buyback
Parade Technologies Ltd (譜瑞), which specializes in designing and selling high-speed signal transmission interfaces and display chips, yesterday said its board of directors has approved a share buyback scheme and would transfer the repurchased shares to its employees. The company plans to repurchase 500,000 shares on the open market from yesterday to Dec. 11 at NT$282.5 to NT$677 per share, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The repurchased shares would account for 0.63 percent of its total issuance, Parade said. The company’s shares yesterday closed up 8.92 percent at NT$403 in Taipei trading. They have declined 31.58 percent this year. The firm reported sales of NT$7.25 billion in first nine months, down 5.8 percent year-on-year.
ELECTRONICS
Ichia Q3 earnings strong
Handset keypad maker Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉科技) on Thursday released unaudited operating results for last quarter showing pretax profit of NT$93 million, the highest for the period in four years. Shipments, product prices, yield rates and operating efficiency improved last quarter from the second quarter, the company said. From January through last month, cumulative pretax profit totaled NT$59 million, the company said in a statement. In the first nine months, consolidated revenue grew 1.68 percent annually to NT$5.34 billion, with gross margin of 6 percent and operating losses of NT$7 million, Ichia said.
ENERGY
Tatung OKs solar plant
Home appliance supplier Tatung Co (大同) on Thursday said its board of directors voted to invest in a 133 megawatt (MW) solar power plant in Tainan’s Cigu District (七股), in addition to a 120MW solar plant in the area that the board approved earlier. Overall, Tatung said it plans to install 253MW of solar capacity in Tainan, as it strives to enhance its market share in solar power plants and assure long-term revenue and profit stability, the company said in a statement. Tatung has been aggressively inviting large-scale financial investors to participate in the investment, it added.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
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