INSURANCE
Taiwan Life to buy Neihu digs
Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽保險) on Friday last week reached an agreement with Easy Finder Publishing Ltd (壹本便利出版) to purchase Hong Kong-based Next Digital Ltd’s (壹傳媒) two office buildings and parking space in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) for NT$1.79 billion (US$58.09 million). After the deal is approved by shareholders, Next Digital is to lease back the office buildings that are used by Chinese-language Apple Daily, Next Magazine and Next TV.
COMPUTERS
Micro-Star names new head
Micro-Star International Co (微星), a leading maker of PC motherboards, graphics cards and gaming computers, on Friday last week said its board of directors approved the appointment of executive vice president Chiang Sheng-chang (江勝昌) as the company’s new president and chief executive officer. Chairman and president The new appointment takes effect on Jan. 1, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
TEXTILES
Wisher sells Chinese shares
Woven fabric and polyester yarn producer Wisher Industrial Co (偉全) on Friday last week said it is selling off its shares in two Chinese subsidiaries, amid worries about rising US-China trade tensions and stricter environmental protection standards in China. Wisher said it would sell all of its shares in Shenglong Textile (Huizhou) Co Ltd (盛龍紡織惠州) and Weiquan Chemical Fibre (Huizhou) Co Ltd (偉全化纖惠州) to Shenzhen Huada Electric Circuit Technology Co Ltd (深圳華大電路科技) with a disposal gain of nearly 100 million yuan (US$14.37 million). Wisher said it would focus its operations at plants in Taoyuan’s Lujhu District (蘆竹) and in Hsinchu County’s Hsinfeng Township (新豐).
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