CHIPMAKERS
Nanya revenue falls 3.74%
Memorychip maker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday reported that revenue for last month decreased to the lowest level in three months, but its combined revenue for the second quarter increased from the previous quarter, indicating that the first quarter was a bottom for the company. Consolidated revenue last month totaled NT$4.09 billion (US$131.38 million), down 3.74 percent from May and a decline of 52.41 percent from a year earlier, Nanya said in a regulatory filing. Combined revenue for the second quarter totaled NT$12.44 billion, up 9.41 percent from the first quarter, bringing total revenue in the first half of this year to NT$23.81 billion, down 45.12 percent from the same period of last year due to falling prices and weak demand, it said.
CHIPMAKERS
RichWave revenue hits high
Radio frequency IC supplier RichWave Technology Corp (立積電子) yesterday reported record-high revenue for last month as its Wi-Fi front-end modules have seen increasing adoption by major US and European vendors, while orders from a Chinese telecom vendor have continued to increase. Consolidated revenue rose 14.74 percent month-on-month and 6.79 percent year-on-year to NT$257.41 million, the company said in a regulatory filing. Second-quarter revenue totaled NT$666.32 million, up 56.66 percent from the previous quarter, but down 6.46 percent from a year earlier, company data showed. The company’s revenue for next quarter is forecast to increase by 21.99 percent from this quarter to NT$810 million, Capital Investment Management Corp (群益投顧) said in a note.
ELECTRONICS
Sinbon income tops forecast
Sinbon Electronics Co (信邦電子), which produces cables, connectors and modems, yesterday reported better-than-expected revenue for last month, lifting the company’s second-quarter revenue to the highest level in its history. Consolidated revenue last month increased 3.62 percent monthly and 19.81 percent annually to NT$1.68 billion, thanks to steady sales contributions from the medical, automotive, green energy, industrial applications and communications businesses, the company said. In the second quarter, revenue grew to a record NT$4.89 billion, from NT$4.05 billion in the first quarter, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
Firms eye production shift
HP Inc and Dell Technologies Inc plan to move as much as 30 percent of their notebook production away from China to avoid US tariffs, the Nikkei cited anonymous sources as saying. Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc, Sony Corp and Nintendo Co are also looking to move some of their game console and smart speaker manufacturing away from the country, the Nikkei Asian Review cited the sources as saying.
EQUITIES
TAIEX falls on tech stocks
Local shares yesterday fell 121.35 points, as large-cap tech stocks moved sharply lower. Contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) dragged the bellwether electronics sector down on news that US-based IC designer Nvidia Corp has shifted its orders from the Taiwanese firm to Samsung Electronics Co for a supply of chips made on the advanced 7-nanometer process. The TAIEX closed down 1.12 percent at 10,743.77 on turnover of NT$111.732 billion. Foreign institutional investors yesterday sold a net NT$8.03 billion of shares on the main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts