■ ELECTRONICS
Compal to sell Himax shares
Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world's second-largest maker of notebook computers, plans to sell 3.42 million shares in Himax Technologies Inc (奇景光電). Compal's board approved the plan on Friday, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The sale may be valued at NT$509 million (US$15.4 million) based on Compal's planned asking minimum price of NT$149 per share, the company said. Compal may book a loss as much as NT$206.9 million from the planned sale, the company said in the filing. Himax, based in Tainan, designs semiconductors used in flat-panel displays. Its US depositary shares trade on the NASDAQ stock market.
■ INVESTMENT
China to boost outflows
China will adjust its financial policies to fund domestic companies and financial institutions' outbound investment and increase foreign-exchange outflows, People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川) said. "China's financial policies to support companies to invest abroad are not sufficient, and the central bank is vigorously working on it," Zhou said yesterday at an investment forum in Xiamen City. "More adjustment will be made to the current foreign-exchange policies that encourage currency inflows, while limiting outflows," Zhou said, adding that his bank would further develop the foreign-exchange market to help companies hedge currency risks and simplify procedures for companies investing outside China.
■ TELECOMS
Glitch snags BlackBerry mail
A software glitch shut down e-mail service for some BlackBerry users on Friday, and delays were still being felt hours after the problem was fixed. Research in Motion Ltd, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company that makes the ubiquitous mobile device, said no e-mails were lost in the shutdown on Friday that affected an unspecified number of customers in North America who subscribe to the BlackBerry Internet Service. Phone service and text messaging were unaffected. The company did not provide an estimate of when service would return to normal and did not specify the software problem.
■ CREDIT
US reviews rating agencies
US federal regulators said on Friday they were reviewing the role credit-rating agencies played in the mortgage debacle for borrowers with weak credit. The Securities and Exchange Commission "has begun a review of credit rating agency policies and procedures," SEC spokesman John Nester said on Friday. That review, he said, would include what ratings mean and whether conflicts of interest were created if rating agencies gave advice to issuers of mortgage debt and originators.
■ BEVERAGES
New Gatorade launched
Pepsi is offering a new low-calorie version of Gatorade in an effort to keep customers who have strayed from the sports drink in search of lower-calorie drinks. PepsiCo, the second-biggest US soft drink company, said in July that its sales of carbonated soft drinks fell 4 percent in the second quarter while non-carbonated drinks grew 3 percent. G2, PepsiCo said, will have 25 calories per 225g serving and is the first new Gatorade product since the original drink was introduced in 1967. The original lemon-lime Gatorade has 50 calories per serving. Purchase, New York-based PepsiCo said it would distribute G2 starting in December.
Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登精密), the sole extreme ultraviolet pod supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it has trimmed its revenue growth target for this year as US tariffs are likely to depress customer demand and weigh on the whole supply chain. Gudeng’s remarks came after the US on Monday notified 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, of new tariff rates that are set to take effect on Aug. 1. Taiwan is still negotiating for a rate lower than the 32 percent “reciprocal” tariffs announced by the US in April, which it later postponed to today. The
MAJOR CONTRIBUTOR: Revenue from AI servers made up more than 50 percent of Wistron’s total server revenue in the second quarter, the company said Wistron Corp (緯創) on Tuesday reported a 135.6 percent year-on-year surge in revenue for last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, with the momentum expected to extend into the third quarter. Revenue last month reached NT$209.18 billion (US$7.2 billion), a record high for June, bringing second-quarter revenue to NT$551.29 billion, a 129.47 percent annual increase, the company said. Revenue in the first half of the year totaled NT$897.77 billion, up 87.36 percent from a year earlier and also a record high for the period, it said. The company remains cautiously optimistic about AI server shipments in the third quarter,
ELECTRONICS: Strong growth in cloud services and smart consumer electronics offset computing declines, helping the company to maintain sales momentum, Hon Hai said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday announced that its sales for last month rose 10 percent year-on-year, driven by strong growth in cloud and networking products amid the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company, also known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), reported consolidated sales of NT$540.24 billion (US$18.67 billion) for the month, the highest ever for the period, and a 10.09 percent increase from a year earlier, although it was down 12.26 percent from the previous month. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said its cloud
APPRECIATION: The central bank stepped in to stabilize the NT dollar after a surge in foreign institutional investment, triggered by optimism about tariffs and US Fed policy Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, as the central bank intervened in the currency market to curb the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation against the US dollar. Foreign exchange reserves increased by US$5.48 billion from May, reaching an all-time high of US$598.43 billion, the central bank said on Friday. While the central bank did not disclose the scale of its intervention, Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民) said that the currency market remained relatively stable until the middle of last month. However, a shift occurred following the US Federal Reserve’s signal of a
RSS