Freescale Semiconductor Inc, a US maker of chips for cars and mobile phones, plans to increase hiring in Hong Kong and China to accelerate product development.
"We want to expand in markets that offer growth," Joe Yiu (姚天從), Asia chairman of the Austin, Texas-based company, said yesterday in Hong Kong.
The company has more than 1,000 engineers in Asia excluding Japan, out of a total workforce of more than 9,000, Yiu said.
Freescale said it is increasing its development of chips used to process cellphone signals to meet demand from customers including Research In Motion Ltd and Motorola Inc.
Worldwide sales of mobile-phones are expected to climb 14 percent to 1.13 billion units this year, research firm Gartner Inc said.
400 ENGINEERS
The US chipmaker is the third-largest supplier of semiconductors used in mobile phones and employs more than 400 engineers in China and Hong Kong, Yiu said.
The company has more than 600 engineers in India, where in March it opened a design center in Noida, near New Delhi, to add to a facility in the southern city of Bangalore, he said.
Freescale, which also supplies chips used in phone and networking equipment to customers including Huawei Technologies Co (華為科技) and ZTE Corp (中興通訊), has design centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chengdu and Suzhou, in addition to Hong Kong.
Freescale moved its Hong Kong office to Phase 2 of Hong Kong Science Park, a government-funded office complex. Phase 2, which cost HK$3.8 billion (US$488 million) to build, opened yesterday.
Companies including Royal Philips Electronics NV and Solomon Systech International Holdings Ltd also lease offices at the complex.
RISING SALES
Freescale increased sales of mobile-phone chips 11 percent to US$1.35 billion last year, behind Texas Instruments Inc and Qualcomm Inc, Gartner said. Freescale also makes chips used in cars for customers including General Motors Corp.
Freescale, which was bought by a group of private-equity companies led by Blackstone Group LP in December, said that sales in the three months to June 29 fell 14 percent from a year earlier to US$1.38 billion.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
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
RSS