TAIEX posts moderate gain
The TAIEX opened higher yesterday, bolstered by the strength in overseas markets and held on to a modest gain at the close of trading. However, construction and property stocks remained under pressure because of the government’s tighter measure to curb soaring property prices, dealers said.
The index rose 46.03 points, or 0.53 percent, to close at 8,738.37 on turnover of NT$138.16 billion (US$4.71 billion).
A total of 2,022 stocks closed up, 2,352 finished down and 482 remained unchanged, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
Qisda posts flat sales
Electronics contract maker Qisda Corp (佳世達) yesterday reported that consolidated revenue last month reached NT$5.62 billion, flat year-on-year, but down 31 percent from January.
The monthly decline was attributed to fewer working days because of the Lunar New Year holiday, it said in a statement.
Qisda also said fourth-quarter profit rose more than 50 percent to NT$670 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.35. Sales advanced 5.6 percent to NT$24.2 billion.
First-quarter shipments of LCD monitors are projected to decline 5 percent sequentially to 4 million units, while those of projectors could rise about 8 percent to 260,000 units, it said.
Foxconn transforming base
Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) is set to transform its factories in southern China into an “engineering base,” while moving about 200,000 jobs to central areas of the country, the Financial Times reported yesterday.
“We will make Shenzhen an engineering campus where we do pilot production only,” Louis Woo (胡國輝), special assistant to group chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘), was quoted by the paper as saying.
Foxconn employs about 1 million workers in China, about half of them based in Shenzhen.
After the planned changes, Foxconn’s work force in Shenzhen would eventually drop below 300,000, the report cited Woo as saying.
China developing 4G system
China may soon launch a domestically developed “fourth-generation” (4G) mobile phone system for the commercial market, state media reported yesterday, citing leading carrier China Mobile Ltd (中國移動通信).
The homegrown candidate for the 4G standard, known as TD-LTE, is being tested in seven cities and will go into commercial use “when the technology is mature,” China Daily cited China Mobile chairman Wang Jianzhou (王建宙) as saying. He did not provide any timetable.
China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile phone operator with 589.3 million subscribers, has developed a Chinese 3G standard called TD-SCDMA. Wang said Apple Inc’s Steve Jobs was interested in developing LTE iPhones.
Ford probing worker abuse
Ford Motor Co was yesterday looking into a graphic report by a human rights group alleging abuse of workers at a Chinese factory.
The accusations came in a report by the Institute for Global Labor and Human Rights entitled Dirty Parts: Where Lost Fingers Come Cheap, with a picture on the cover of a mangled hand missing three fingers.
The report accuses Yuwei Plastics and Hardware Product Co in Dongguan of paying its workers US$0.80 per hour and of making them work 14-hour shifts, seven days a week, making auto parts sold to Ford.
Yuan sends NT dollar higher
Pushed by a stronger yuan, the New Taiwan dollar finished NT$0.08 higher against the US dollar yesterday, closing at NT$29.462 on turnover of US$1.098 billion, Taipei Foreign Exchange data showed.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
RSS