MARKETS
Listed firms’ revenues up
Companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange last month saw their combined revenue increase 6.8 percent year-on-year on a consolidated basis. Listed companies posted a total of NT$3.21 trillion (US$103.85 billion) in revenue last month, the highest for the month, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Thursday. Third-quarter sales by listed companies totaled NT$9.2 trillion, up 10.3 percent, while aggregate sales in the first nine months increased 8.7 percent to NT$25.29 trillion, the commission said.
LABOR
August wages up 2.95%
The average monthly regular wage was NT$41,241 in August, up 2.95 percent from the same month last year, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics reported on Thursday. Including bonuses and compensation, the overall average monthly wage rose 7.44 percent year-on-year to NT$49,816, it said. From January to August, the average regular wage was NT$40,830 per month, up 2.61 percent from a year earlier and the highest level for the period in 18 years, while the overall average wage, including bonuses and compensation, increased 4.39 percent to NT$54,215 per month, the agency said.
MANUFACTURING
Ritek’s losses narrow
Ritek Corp (錸德), the nation’s leading optical disc maker, on Friday reported that net losses narrowed to NT$30 million last month, from NT$57 million at the end of June, thanks to price hikes on regular optical disks and higher shipments of archive discs. Ritek shares on Friday rose 10 percent in Taipei trading. They have gained 124.25 percent this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
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