INVESTMENT
BERI ranks Taiwan No. 3
The US’ Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) ranked Taiwan the third-best place to invest in the world and the second-best place to invest in Asia in its latest Business Risk Report, issued this month. Taiwan moved up one notch from the previous report, the first time it has regained third place since 2011. The survey evaluates a country’s investment environment in three sub-indices: operations risk, political risk and foreign exchange risk.
CHIPMAKERS
MediaTek sales soaring
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s No. 1 chip designer, said yesterday that its consolidated sales for last month hit a 39-month high on the back of solid demand from China. MediaTek posted NT$12.57 billion (US$426 million) in consolidated sales for the month, up 33.32 percent from the previous month and 58.28 percent from a year earlier. The figure is the highest since January 2010, when the firm’s consolidated sales stood at NT$13.58 billion.
INVESTMENT
HTC plans Windows tablets
HTC Corp (宏達電) may launch two tablet models running Microsoft Corp’s Windows RT Blue platform in mid-October to be codenamed R7 and R12 in accordance with their respective screen sizes — a post on the technology Web site PhoneArena said on Tuesday. HTC declined to comment on the report.
POWERING UP: PSUs for AI servers made up about 50% of Delta’s total server PSU revenue during the first three quarters of last year, the company said Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) reported record-high revenue of NT$161.61 billion (US$5.11 billion) for last quarter and said it remains positive about this quarter. Last quarter’s figure was up 7.6 percent from the previous quarter and 41.51 percent higher than a year earlier, and largely in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$160 billion. Delta’s annual revenue last year rose 31.76 percent year-on-year to NT$554.89 billion, also a record high for the company. Its strong performance reflected continued demand for high-performance power solutions and advanced liquid-cooling products used in artificial intelligence (AI) data centers,
SIZE MATTERS: TSMC started phasing out 8-inch wafer production last year, while Samsung is more aggressively retiring 8-inch capacity, TrendForce said Chipmakers are expected to raise prices of 8-inch wafers by up to 20 percent this year on concern over supply constraints as major contract chipmakers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Samsung Electronics Co gradually retire less advanced wafer capacity, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. It is the first significant across-the-board price hike since a global semiconductor correction in 2023, the Taipei-based market researcher said in a report. Global 8-inch wafer capacity slid 0.3 percent year-on-year last year, although 8-inch wafer prices still hovered at relatively stable levels throughout the year, TrendForce said. The downward trend is expected to continue this year,
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
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