China’s deadly virus outbreak is threatening the outlook for casino operators in the world’s largest gambling hub. The number of mainland Chinese visitors to Macau fell 80 percent on Sunday, the third day of the holiday, compared with the equivalent day during last year’s Lunar New Year break, according to the city’s tourism office.
For the first three days of the holiday, arrivals were down 66 percent. That is a blow for an economy which is reliant on the gambling industry, and comes after casinos suffered their worst year since 2015. The outlook is unlikely to get any better as China limits travel for its citizens, including overseas tour bans, amid the growing death toll caused by the novel coronavirus.
Macau Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng (賀一誠) said on Thursday he could not rule out closing all casinos in the city due to the disease outbreak, according to a Radio Television Hong Kong report.
Wynn Resorts Ltd shares plunged 11 percent in US trading last week, while Wynn Macau Ltd shares sank 13 percent in Hong Kong. Shares in Sands China Ltd (金沙中國) dropped more than 8 percent. Hong Kong’s markets are closed for holidays until tomorrow.
In China, box office sales plunged to about 6.1 million yuan (US$883,000) over the first three days of the holiday, compared with 2.3 billion yuan in the year-earlier period, according to Maoyan Movie (貓眼電影) data. Cinema operators including Dadi Cinema Group (大地影院), Jinyi Cinemas (金逸電影) and the local affiliate of CJ CGV Co (星聚匯) announced last week they were halting operations from Friday last week through yesterday.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
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