Internet portal PC Home Online (
The company will use an auction similar to the format used by US Internet giant Google and take bids on the Web for 3.6 million of its shares. The four-day online bidding, with a floor price of NT$21.9 per share, is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, while the company plans to sell another 3.6 million shares to the public, for a maximum of NT$28.47 each.
"The method [of this IPO] matches the style of our company as an innovative platform," PC Home Online's assistant public relations manager Joyce Tzeng (
The company will not set a cap on bidding prices, she said.
PC Home Online, the first Internet portal to go public in Taiwan, is slated to make its debut on the nation's over-the-counter market, the Gretai Securities Market (櫃台買賣中心), on Jan. 24.
The online service provider created NT$2 billion of revenue in the first 11 months of this year, of which e-commerce business accounted for 86.8 percent, with income from advertising and other businesses taking up the rest, according to the company.
The company expects to generate profits of NT$810 million, or NT$1.50 per share, on annual revenue of between NT$2.3 billion and NT$2.4 billion this year.
It projects sales will jump by 50 percent to NT$3 billion next year, driven by the expected fast growth of e-commerce and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services, said Jan Hung-tze (
PC Home Online launched a free Internet telephony service in July this year in alliance with Skype Technologies SA and, as of yesterday, has seen nearly 2 million downloads with traffic reaching 800,000 users, including 25,000 employing the "SkypeOut" service.
The service enables users to make domestic or international calls from their computer to fixed line and mobile phones for one-eighth to one-third the price that fixed-line carriers charge.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Pegatron Corp (和碩), an iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, is to spend NT$5.64 billion (US$186.82 million) to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) factories in Taoyuan and invest NT$578.57 million in its India subsidiary to expand manufacturing capacity, after its board approved the plans on Wednesday. The Taoyuan factories would expand production of consumer electronics, and communication and computing devices, while the India investment would boost production of communications devices and possibly automotive electronics later, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. Pegatron expects to complete the Taoyuan factory transaction in the third quarter, said the official, who declined to be
RSS