ELECTRONICS
LCD TV shipments fall 35.5%
Shipments of Taiwan-made LCD TVs in the first quarter fell 35.5 percent quarterly to 6.25 million units due to seasonal factors, down 5.1 percent from a year earlier, Digitimes Research said on Friday. Local manufacturers are expected to ship 6.86 million LCD TVs this quarter, although the figures are still 10 percent less than last year, the Taipei-based researcher said. TPV Technology Group (冠捷科技集團) and Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) remained the two leading TV makers, commanding about 65 percent of shipments, Digitimes said.
ELECTRONICS
HTC blockchain phone refined
HTC Corp (宏達電) plans to release a second-generation blockchain smartphone in the second half of this year in an effort to generate more sales in a competitive global market. At a tech forum in Taipei on Friday, HTC chief decentralized officer Phil Chen (陳信生) said the new phone would carry cryptocurrency apps, like the first-generation device, but would also allow digital asset management. HTC launched its first blockchain phone, the HTC Exodus 1, in the fourth quarter of last year.
MANUFACTURING
Walsin dividend approved
Passive components maker Walsin Technology Corp’s (華新科技) board of directors has approved a cash dividend of NT$16.3 (US$10.52) per common share, representing a 40 percent payout ratio based on earnings per share of NT$40.75 last year, the company said on Friday, as it released financial results for the first quarter. Net profit rose 76.1 percent year-on-year, but declined 52.62 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$2.31 billion, with earnings per share of NT$4.77. The company’s gross margin was 42.7 percent and operating margin was 32.98 percent.
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
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
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