RETAIL
Uni-President eyes Woongjin
Uni-President Enterprise Corp (統一企業), which operates 7-Eleven convenience stores, yesterday said it has signed an agreement to acquire a 74.75 percent stake in Woongjin Foods Co for US$229 million. The acquisition is part of the company’s overseas strategic expansion. Woongjin Foods, established in 1976, is a beverage brand in South Korea that has also expanded into the healthy food industry. The deal is subject to approval from competition watchdogs in Taiwan and South Korea.
SOLAR
Gigastorage to sell assets
Money-losing solar wafer maker Gigastorage Corp (國碩) yesterday said its board of directors has approved a proposal to sell land, factory facilities and equipment in Hsinchu County to Center Laboratories Inc (晟德大藥廠) for NT$571 million (US$18.51 million) to rejuvenate its idle assets. The deal is expected to bring in income of NT$250 million to NT$259 million, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed. Gigastorage saw its revenue tumble 23.38 percent year-on-year to NT$8.69 billion in the first 11 months of this year due to an oversupply-driven slump. It lost NT$548.4 million in the third quarter, widening from losses of NT$129 million in the same period last year.
SEMICONDUCTORS
SEMI reports fewer billings
North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted US$1.94 billion in worldwide billings last month, according to last month’s Equipment Market Data Subscription report published by SEMI yesterday. The billings figure was 4.2 percent less than the October level of US$2.03 billion, and was 5.3 percent less than the US$2.05 billion reported in November last year. “For the first time in over two years, billings of North American equipment manufacturers are down relative to the same month the year before,” SEMI president and CEO Ajit Manocha said. “After reaching historical revenues earlier this year, billings activity is decelerating in line with weaker growth expectations for 2019.” The report uses three-month moving averages of worldwide billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Chang upbeat about IC need
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) is optimistic about the IC industry in the long run as new technologies emerge. In an interview with the Chinese-language Economic Daily News on Wednesday, Chang said that emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G cannot be isolated from the computing for which ICs serve as a base. Due to the continued need for computing, Chang remained upbeat about the semiconductor industry, saying that no matter what new devices are made, IC demand is to remain solid in the long term. As long as TSMC continues to do its best in research and development, and rolls out competitive products, there is no need to worry that the chipmaker will lose business, Chang said. As for AI, Chang said that the new technology is expected to change the way people live in an even more powerful manner than the Internet, which debuted 25 years ago. He predicted that many jobs would be taken over by AI, leaving many people jobless and widening the wealth gap, and urged governments and educational institutions to work together to tackle the problem.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last