Shares of Sharp Corp, Japan's biggest maker of liquid-crystal displays, rose 3.6 percent as investors bet the company's dominance of the flat-panel television market will lift earnings.
The gain also followed a Nihon Keizai newspaper report that said Osaka-based Sharp last month increased monthly production of liquid-crystal display panels by a tenth to 110,000 units, allowing it to make the equivalent of 40,000 more 20-inch TVs. The newspaper report reiterated plans Sharp outlined in January.
The maker of Aquos flat-screen televisions is locked in a battle with South Korean and Taiwanese rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co and Quanta Display Inc (廣輝電子) to be among the first with advanced factories to produce larger glass panels at lower cost.
Sharp's investments may keep it ahead of rivals, analysts said.
"Sharp's No. 1 position in small-sized screens and focus on the more expensive areas such as those for TVs at its larger-sized panel business is easy to understand and appreciate," said Keita Wakabayashi, an analyst with Mito Securities Research Institute.
Samsung Electronics intensified the battle last week when the South Korean company said it will spend 20 trillion won (US$17 billion) over the next seven years on new plants and equipment.
Meanwhile, Sharp is also facing competition in Taiwan, where manufacturers have begun pouring money into new flat-screen plants.
At least four companies in Taiwan -- AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), Quanta Display and HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) -- this year are opening some of the world's first so-called fifth-generation factories that can make screens for televisions that measure 30 inches diagonally and larger.
The new plants are helping cut costs by increasing the screens that can be made from a single plate of glass material.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
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