TAIEX down on currency moves
The benchmark TAIEX closed down 1.06 percent yesterday as investors took note of losses suffered on other regional markets amid concern over the rapid appreciation of Asian currencies, dealers said.
The TAIEX fell 86.54 points to 8,090.22, after moving between 8,058.59 and 8,180.39, on turnover of NT$102.14 billion (US$3.3 billion).
The market opened down 0.06 points and selling accelerated after regional markets, including Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul, expanded losses to drag the local index down below the 8,100 point support level, dealers said.
A total of 2,820 stocks closed down, 1,065 finished up, and 237 stocks remained unchanged.
AUO to challenge lawsuit
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), the nation’s second-largest LCD panel maker, will defend itself against antitrust claims filed by Best Buy Co, according to a statement to the local bourse yesterday. The company has hired legal counsel to handle the case, it said.
The US retailer sued AUO and at least nine other global panel makers on Friday last week, according to the complaint filed in a US federal court in San Francisco, alleging from 1996 to 2006 the companies agreed on prices and production volumes.
Alibaba launches search engine
A unit of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (阿里巴巴) said yesterday it had launched a search engine, in an apparent effort to capitalize on Google’s shrinking market share in China.
John Spelich, a spokesman for Hong Kong-listed unit Alibaba.com, told reporters in an e-mail that the engine, called Etao, was up and running but was still in its final testing stage.
After testing he said Etao would be officially launched by Taobao (淘寶網), which is owned by -Alibaba Group, and is China’s largest online consumer e-commerce site.
Spelich declined to provide further details.
As well as search options for e-commerce, Etao will provide a search engine powered by Microsoft’s Bing, a minor player in China’s search engine market, which is dominated by China’s Baidu (百度) and to a lesser extent Google.
Goldman holds HTC rating
Goldman Sachs said yesterday that it was maintaining a “buy” recommendation on smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) after the company released five new models running on Microsoft Corp’s new Windows Phone 7 (WP7) operating system.
Goldman said the new models highlight HTC’s competitive advantage of being a Microsoft partner in commercializing new technologies.
The brokerage said it does not expect WP7 smartphones to be an immediate growth driver for HTC, but forecast that the benefits will be seen next year.
“We expect the products to incrementally fuel HTC’s momentum in the fourth quarter of this year and beyond,” Goldman said.
Goldman set a 12-month target price of NT$1,000 for HTC stocks, which fell 2.24 percent to NT$699.00 yesterday.
IPad awaits S Korean approval
US technology giant Apple is seeking approval to sell its iPad in South Korea, the telecommunications regulator said yesterday, after the iPhone’s local popularity fanned interest in the tablet computer.
The Korea Communications Commission said in a statement it would make a decision within five days on the request by Apple’s South Korean unit for technical approval.
A spokesman for KT Corp, local distributor of Apple’s iPhone, told Yonhap news agency it hopes to release the iPad next month once the certification is completed. He did not give a specific date.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) investment project in Arizona has progressed better than expected, but it still faces challenges such as water and labor shortages, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Yeh Chun-hsien (葉俊顯) said yesterday. Speaking with reporters after visiting TSMC’s Arizona hub and attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit in Maryland last week, Yeh said TSMC’s Arizona site turned a profit of NT$16.14 billion (US$514 million) last year in its first full year of mass production. “TSMC told me it was surprised by the smooth trial run of the first fab, which has left the company optimistic about the project’s outlook,”
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