ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai facing suit: reports
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, yesterday declined to comment on media reports that Microsoft Corp had filed a lawsuit against the Taiwanese firm last week in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Microsoft has sued Hon Hai for failing to comply with a patent-licensing agreement from 2013 and accused it of not paying royalties on time, several media outlets reported, citing US news network CNBC. “The company does not comment on an ongoing judicial case,” Hon Hai said in a regulatory filing. Hon Hai shares yesterday fell 0.42 percent to close at NT$70.4 in Taipei.
APPAREL
Quang Viet to pay NT$6
Quang Viet Enterprise Co (廣越), which makes down jackets for The North Face and other major brands, has proposed paying a cash dividend of NT$6 per common share, representing a payout ratio of 80.75 percent. The company’s net profit surged about 47 percent year-on-year to NT$769 million (US$24.88 million) last year, thanks to higher product prices and lower labor costs. Earnings per share rose to NT$7.43, from NT$5.07 in 2017. The company expects revenue to grow by a double-digit percentage this year from NT$13.28 billion last year. Cumulative revenue in the first two months had doubled to NT$1.5 billion from NT$689 millon in the same period last year.
AUTO PARTS
Hiroca revenue slumps
Automotive components maker Hiroca Holdings Ltd (廣華) yesterday reported that cumulative revenue for the first two months of the year declined 18.81 percent year-on-year to NT$1.03 billion due to weakness in the Chinese automobile market. However, steady sales of major Japanese brands Toyota Motor Corp, Honda Motor Co and Nissan Motor Co in China — which account for more than 70 percent of the company’s revenue — provided some support, Hiroca said. The company said it is cautiously optimistic about this quarter and expects its customers’ efforts to digest inventory to foster a healthier market.
COMPUTERS
Advantech profit a record
Industrial computer supplier Advantech Co (研華) posted earnings per share of NT$9.02 last year, the highest in nearly 20 years, thanks to rising revenue and an improved operating margin. Net profit for last year increased 62.3 percent year-on-year and operating profit grew 2.6 percent to NT$6.31 billion, with revenue rising 10 percent to NT$48.78 billion, the company said on Friday last week. Last year’s profit and revenue were the highest in the company’s history. Gross margin was 38.3 percent and operating margin was 15.33 percent, compared with 39.17 percent and 15.28 percent a year earlier respectively, the company said.
VIDEO GAMES
XPEC’s Hsu released on bail
The Taiwan High Court yesterday approved the release of Aaron Hsu (許金龍), former chairman of game developer XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞), who has been detained at the Taipei Detention Center since October 2016. In February last year, the Taipei District Court sentenced Hsu to 18 years in prison after he was found guilty of fraud. It also seized NT$4.07 billion deemed to be illegal profits in relation to a failed tender offer by a Japanese firm. In his bail terms, the court restricted Hsu from changing his place of residence and required him to report to his local police station every night.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to