Jitters drive TAIEX lower
The TAIEX fell 2.39 percent yesterday as forthcoming corporate earnings reports made investors jittery, analysts said.
The weighted index dropped 133.29 points to 5,443.56 on turnover of NT$150.27 billion (US$4.44 billion).
Losers outnumbered gainers 1,414 to 681, while 118 stocks remained unchanged.
“Investors were concerned about corporate earnings reports being released this month, given the global economic recession,” Chen Yu-yu (陳育娛) of Capital Securities (群益證券) said. “Selling pressure was very high, as expected, as the market encountered a barrier in the 5,600 to 5,800 points range,” Chen said.
Consolidation may take three to four weeks and the market should find its level between 5,200 and 5,300 points, he said.
Mobile sales expected to fall
Taiwanese mobile phone sales were forecast to fall 9.3 percent this year because of weakened replacement demand and an extended replacement cycle, an industry report said yesterday.
Sales were estimated at 6.39 million units by the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (產業情報研究所), which called this year crucial for Taiwanese mobile phone operators in terms of grabbing a bigger share of the mobile Internet market.
“Overall, as the global economy is projected to be locked in a downturn in 2009, consumer confidence is expected to be even weaker in the year ahead,” the report said. “As a result, it is expected that there will be keen price war in mobile phone sales channels and mobile operators will lower Internet access rates for their data cards to stimulate demand.”
Judy Tu offers to resign
Yuanta Securities Corp (元大證券) chairwoman Judy Tu (杜麗莊) offered to resign from her post yesterday, less than a week after prosecutors sought a jail term of 10 years each for her and her husband Rudy Ma (馬志玲), the founder of Yuanta Group (元大集團).
The Financial Supervisory Commission has asked Yuanta Financial Holding Co (元大金控) to discipline any of its top management that are indicted by prosecutors.
Chinatrust reports lower income
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控), the owner of the nation’s largest credit card issuer, reported a 31 percent drop in unaudited first-quarter net income.
Profits declined to NT$3.4 billion (US$100 million), or NT$0.35 a share, the Taipei-based company said in a filing to the stock exchange yesterday. Net income was NT$4.9 billion a year earlier.
The Taipei-based firm is the parent company of Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託商銀). The lender’s first-quarter profits fell to NT$2.7 billion, or NT$0.37 a share, it said in a separate filing.
First-quarter net income was NT$4.7 billion a year earlier.
UMC sales better than expected
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) yesterday reported better-than-expected sales last month of NT$4.54 billion (US$134 million), up 44.45 percent from NT$3.14 billion in February.
Credit Suisse had predicted UMC would post a 35 percent month-on-month increase.
In the first three months, UMC has made NT$10.84 billion in revenues, down 54.85 percent from the NT$24 billion in revenues during the first quarter of last year.
Elan files suit against Apple
Elan Microelectronics Corp (義隆電子) has filed a patent infringement suit against Apple Inc in a US court, the Hsinchu-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
The patents are used in Apple’s Macbook, iPhone and iPod touch products, the statement said.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
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