STEELMAKERS
CSC profit tops NT$31bn
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) yesterday reported that its preliminary pretax profit for the past year rose 36 percent annually to NT$31.89 billion (US$1.03 billion), with revenue rising 15 percent annually to NT$400.66 billion. Gross profit rose 35 percent annually to NT$3.35 billion, it said. Pretax profit last month fell 30 percent sequentially to NT$1.95 billion, with revenue dropping 4 percent from November to NT$33.24 billion, it said, adding that it sold a total of 11.24 million tonnes of carbon steel in the past year, of which 70 percent was sold domestically.
TECHNOLOGY
Taipei hosts 3GPP meeting
A five-day working group meeting of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) opened in Taipei on Monday, with more than 350 representatives from about 150 high-tech companies, including Intel Corp, AT&T Inc, NTT DoCoMo Inc, Samsung Electronics Co and Nokia Corp. No conclusion on future global standards for 5G applications was likely to be reached, but it would still be an important venue for developers to present opinions on future trends, said a representative of MediaTek Inc (聯發科), one of the event organizers. Holding the meeting in Taiwan for a fifth consecutive year illustrated recognition of the nation’s strength in 5G development, she said. Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said the meeting was expected to allow Taiwanese developers to discuss standardization of future applications with their foreign counterparts.
GAMES
Tencent, Netease miss out
Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and Netease Inc (網易) were again left out when Chinese regulators green-lit the latest batch of online games, spurring concern that China’s largest games companies might have to wait longer than anticipated to start making money off hit titles. Neither firm’s products appeared on a list of 93 domestic games approved for licenses this month and both were also absent from 164 cleared last month, ending a nine-month freeze. Smaller rivals, including Shanghai-listed Jiangsu Phoenix Publishing & Media Corp Ltd (鳳凰傳媒) and Shenzhen-listed Sanqi Interactive Entertainment (三七互娛), made the cut instead, notices posted by the Chinese National Radio and Television Administration showed.
STOCKS
Taipei rallies late to end up
The TAIEX yesterday closed slightly higher after recouping earlier losses, with late-session buying focusing on select heavyweights, in particular contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), dealers said. Turnover remained in a narrow range amid rising concerns over economic fundamentals after the government on Monday reported a more than 10 percent year-on-year decline in export orders for last month, they said. The TAIEX closed up 5.26 points, or 0.05 percent, at 9,894.66 on turnover of NT$77.17 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Buying emerged in the final few minutes of the session as bargain hunters picked up select large-cap stocks such as TSMC, Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠) and Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), helping the main board recover from the earlier losses and end the day in positive territory, dealers said. “It was a quiet day, with turnover falling partly because Wall Street closed overnight [for Martin Luther King Jr Day], providing no direction for investors here,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投信) analyst Alex Huang (黃國偉) said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained