■ TAIEX falls on oil price hike
Share prices closed 0.83 percent lower yesterday, as exporters such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) fell after crude oil prices rose, raising concern that production costs would rise and overseas consumers would have less to spend. The TAIEX fell 55.04 points to the day's low of 6,631.51, on turnover of NT$75.59 billion (US$2.33 billion). Hon Hai Precision, the nation's largest electronics exporter, dropped 1.7 percent to NT$206. Asia Optical Co (亞光), which supplies lenses used in digital cameras, fell after Citigroup Inc cut its price target, citing a disappointing outlook for this year. It plunged 6.9 percent to NT$155.
■ Chi Mei plans new China plant
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) plans to build its second factory in China to make liquid-crystal display modules. "We are planning a second module plant in China to meet rising demand and Shenzhen is one of the possible locations we would consider," Eddie Chen (陳彥松), a company spokesman said yesterday. "The timetable and investment amount haven't been finalized." The firm may build the factory in Shenzhen, where many LCD-TV makers are located, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing Chi Mei chairman Liao Chin-hsiang (廖錦祥).
■ NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar traded lower against its US counterpart on the Taipei foreign exchange market yesterday, declining NT$0.083 to close at NT$32.483. Trading during the day totaled US$977 million.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
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