■ TELECOMS
Oi announces purchase
Brazilian telecommunications group Oi announced on Friday it had bought out rival Brasil Telecom for US$3.5 billion. The agreement merges the two largest fixed-line telephone companies in Brazil and creates a giant that controls around 70 percent of the country’s telephone landlines. The new company will also control 18 percent of the mobile phone market and 43 percent of the broadband Internet market, according to company information released in February. Oi said the takeover depends on changes in the law that forbid one group to control two separate concessions.
■ TELECOMS
Wu to become chairman
First International Telecom Corp (大眾電信), the nation’s only mobile operator on PHS low-power systems, announced on Friday its president Charlie Wu (吳清源) would replace Ming Chien (簡明仁) as the company’s new chairman, while Chien will remain to serve a director on the board, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday. Last month, First International Telecom raised NT$810 million (US$26.7 million) by selling about 90 million common shares to investors such as United Microelectronics Co (聯電) and Inventec Appliances Corp (英華達) in a bid to finance the deployment of a WiMAX network.
■ EXPORTS
Spain buying photovoltaics
The export of photovoltaic products to Spain grew 388.8 percent from the previous year to reach US$125 million in the first three months of the year, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Photovoltaic products also posted the largest growth in Taiwan’s total exports to Spain, the TAITRA said in a statement on Thursday. Total exports were recorded at US$520 million, up 49.14 percent from the same period the previous year, it said.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
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