BEVERAGES
Oceanic to ‘support’ probe
Drinks maker Oceanic Beverages Co Ltd (大西洋飲料) yesterday said that it would “fully support” an investigation of alleged contraventions of the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法), after prosecutors said they are to summon several of the company’s employees, including chairman Chiang Kuo-kuei (江國貴), for questioning. The company’s shares were suspended from trading on Monday after it failed to provide an audited financial report to the Taiwan Stock Exchange due to PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants’ reservations about financial records related to three property deals. Oceanic Beverages, which has not yet hired new accountants to sign off on its financial report, could face a delisting as soon as June, local media reported.
PANELMAKERS
Prosecutors to handle CPT
The Financial Supervisory Commission said it has decided to hand a case involving LCD panel maker Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd’s (CPT, 中華映管) questionable investment in China’s CPT Technology Group Co (華映科技) to prosecutors for further investigation, as the company might have deliberately concealed information to keep shareholders from knowing details about the investment, which would contravene the Securities Exchange Act. The commission would also refer its parent company, Tatung Co (大同), to prosecutors for investigation, Chairman Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said.
BEVERAGES
Taisun, Cama Cafe team up
Food and cooking oil supplier Taisun Enterprise Co (泰山企業) yesterday announced that it would team up with local coffee chain Cama Cafe to develop new coffee products. Taisun said it hopes the products would help it break into the nation’s ready-to-drink coffee market worth NT$7 billion (US$226.8 million) per year. It did not specify flavors, prices or debut dates. Taisun, which holds a 20 percent stake in convenience store operator Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店), said that it is confident in the success of the products based on its food safety, management and channel retailing experience.
GAMING
IGS profits, sales up
International Games System Co (IGS, 鈊象電子), a leading online and arcade game developer, yesterday reported better-than-expected pretax income of NT$376 million for the first quarter, or pretax earnings per share (EPS) of NT$5.35, while sales increased 35.04 percent year-on-year to NT$976 million. Arcade games accounted for 20 percent of the company’s revenue, while online games made up the rest. The firm said that it would maintain its focus on the three major arcade game markets of China, the US and Southeast Asia this year. IGS shares yesterday rose by the daily limit to close at NT$248.5, the highest since August 2016.
SHIPPING
Yang Ming buys four ships
Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) has signed charter agreements for four 11,000 twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) container vessels with Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd, which would be delivered in the first three quarters of 2022 to help enhance the company’s mid to long-term operational efficiency and competitiveness. Yang Ming said it has since last year ordered another 10 11,000 TEU vessels through long-term charter agreements with Owners Costamare and Shoei Kisen. The new ships would enable Yang Ming to have a total of 14 11,000 TEU newly built container ships from next year to 2022, it said.
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