■ High-tech firms boost TAIEX
Shares rose yesterday, led by gains in the technology sector following a rally in US stocks. The TAIEX added 58.69 points at 6,518.70, on turnover of NT$96.03 billion (US$2.96 billion). Electronics shares outperformed other sectors yesterday, with the subindex rising 1.4 percent, while shares of contract chipmakers were strong on the 2.2 percent rise of the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index overnight. Financials were also buoyed by news that the Cabinet would try to persuade the legislature against adopting a plan to impose a lower ceiling on interest rates charged by banks for credit and cash card debt in the face of rising defaults.
■ BSA starts new campaign
To fight software piracy, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) Taiwan yesterday launched its software legalization campaign for this year. It offers rewards of up to NT$10 million to encourage office workers to report against companies illegally duplicating software or using pirated software. According to a recent IDC study, the annual output value of the nation's information technology will increase sharply by 15 percent to US$7.3 billion if the current piracy rate of 43 percent can be lowered to 33 percent. Considerable job and tax income opportunities would therefore be created, said Hongti Sung (宋紅媞), the co-chair of BSA Taiwan.
During the 45-day campaign lasting through April 30, BSA will provide NT$1 million and up to NT$10 million to informants based on the amount and quality of the information, the severity of the infringement as well as the result of litigation, Sung said.
■ Singapore firm eyes TwinMos
Memory Devices Ltd, a Singapore-based maker of memory storage products, said it plans to acquire Taiwan's TwinMos Technologies Inc (勤茂資通) for US$96.8 million. The acquisition will be funded through the issue of 375.2 million Memory Devices shares at S$0.42 each, Memory Devices said in a statement to the Singapore Exchange yesterday. "TwinMos offers MDL an established brand name and an extensive global retail network," Memory Devices said in the statement. "Future acquisitions are expected to follow." Privately held TwinMos posted sales of US$384 million last year, the statement said. Memory Devices said it expects sales of more than US$500 million this year. William Chen (陳文藝), chairman and president of TwinMos, has given Memory Devices a profit guarantee of at least US$11 million for this year, the statement said.
■ Yangming lifts Vietnam stake
Yangming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) plans to invest in the expansion of the Vung Tau Port in southern Vietnam, a newspaper reported yesterday. The Chinese-language China Times quoted Yangming chairman Huang Wang-hsiu (黃望修) as saying that his company has signed a letter of intent to participate in developing the Vung Tau Port, 70km from Ho Chi Minh City. The project includes building terminals and logistics and storage facilities, Huang told the paper. Yangming plans to build three to four terminals for bulk carriers and container vessels and obtain a 60 percent stake in the port's operations, the daily said. As for the logistics and storage facilities, some of them will be finished and ready for use before year's end, it added.
■ NT dollar climbs
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against its US counterpart on the Taipei foreign exchange market yesterday, rising NT$0.034 to close at NT$32.400. A total of US$826 million changed hands during the day's trading.
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,
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
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS