FOREX
Reserves reach record
Taiwan’s foreign-exchange reserves hit a record last month, largely due to a massive inflow of funds, the central bank said on Friday. An increase in returns on the central bank’s investment portfolio also drove up forex reserves last month, the bank said. Data compiled by the bank showed that forex reserves as of the end of last month stood at US$469.49 billion, up US$1.32 billion from August. It was the fourth consecutive month that Taiwan recorded a new high in reserves, the data showed.
ELECTRONICS
HTC reports sales rise
HTC Corp (宏達電) on Thursday reported its first year-on-year increase in monthly sales in more than two years. HTC posted NT$1.275 billion (US$41.16 million) in consolidated sales last month, up 1.53 percent from a year earlier, it said in a statement. On a monthly basis, consolidated sales soared 73.7 percent, marking the second consecutive month of increases. Despite its efforts to develop virtual-reality headsets, strong competition in the global smartphone market squeezed HTC’s sales for the first nine months of this year, with cumulative revenue falling 58.17 percent from a year earlier to NT$8.2 billion.
ELECTRONICS
ASE issues green bonds
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packager and tester, on Thursday issued US$300 million of green bonds to offset its emissions. The company is the fourth to sell green bonds in Taiwan after Far Eastern New Century Corp (遠東新世紀), Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) and Chi Mei Corp (奇美實業), but the first to issue foreign currency-denominated green bonds, the exchange said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”