Taiwan Polysilicon cuts workers
Taiwan Polysilicon Corp (福聚太陽能), which makes polysilicon for solar cell production, yesterday said it was reducing its workforce by more than 22 percent and would temporarily suspend production because of lower-than-expected demand.
Taiwan Polysilicon, a 64.9 percent holding of LCY Chemical Corp (李長榮化學), yesterday laid off 45 people, reducing its workforce to about 240.
It plans to lay off another 25 people today, company spokesman Wu Shian-jin (吳銜晉) said.
The company produced 320 tonnes of polysilicon in the first half of the year, but it will stop production in the next two months, Wu said.
Wu cited worsening market conditions for the reductions, because of the impact of the US’ imposition of antidumping duties on polysilicon exports from Taiwan and China, slower-than-expected demand from solar power stations in China.
TSMC posts record sales
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies A8 processors for Apple Inc’s new iPhone 6, yesterday posted record high revenues for last month.
Sales rose 6.7 percent to NT$69.28 billion (US$2.31 billion) from July, up 25.8 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a statement.
In July, TSMC forecast that revenue this quarter would hit a record of between NT$206 billion and NT$209 billion, representing an increase of between 12.56 percent and 14.19 percent from the second quarter.
Meanwhile, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) on Tuesday said that sales last month dipped to their lowest level since April, dragged down by the company’s solar business.
Consolidated sales last month declined 1.09 percent from July to NT$11.42 billion, but were up 3.79 percent from a year earlier, said UMC, the nation’s second-largest maker of made-to-order semiconductor chips.
In the first eight months of the year, TSMC saw cumulative revenue increase 17.6 percent to NT$395.84 billion from the same period last year, while UMC’s total sales in the same period grew 10.07 percent to NT$90.52 billion from a year ago.
Pension cuts Chunghwa profit
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s largest telecommunications operator, yesterday reported an 18.18 percent annual decline in net profit to NT$2.88 billion last month, primarily due to a lump-sum payment to employees joining an early retirement program.
Chunghwa’s net income in the first eight months of the year was NT$27.07 billion, edging up 1 percent from the same period last year and helping the company achieve 75.5 percent of its target for this year.
Revenue fell 2.8 percent last month to NT$18.56 billion from a year ago, bringing total revenue in the January-August period to NT$147.83 billion, down 1.6 percent year-on-year.
Innolux leads in revenue
Innolux Corp (群創), the nation’s largest LCD panel manufacturer, on Tuesday said that revenue for last month increased 4.8 percent to NT$36.43 billion from July after shipments of flat panels for PCs and TVs jumped 11.8 percent from the previous month. The figure was the highest level in four months.
Rival AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) reported that revenue edged lower by 0.7 percent to NT$35.51 billion last month from July, although shipments of flat panels for PCs and TVs increased 3.6 percent to 9.98 million units.
Smaller maker HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) also saw revenue for last month decline 1.69 percent month-on-month to NT$1.83 billion, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Vanilla Air to fly to Kaohsiung
Vanilla Air Inc, a budget airline in Japan wholly owned by ANA Holdings Inc — the parent company of All Nippon Airways (ANA) — is to launch daily flights between Kaohsiung International Airport and Narita International Airport in Tokyo in February.
That will make Vanilla Air the third low-cost carrier to operate a route to Greater Kaohsiung, after Air Busan Co Ltd of South Korea and Peach Aviation of Japan.
Vanilla Air is scheduled to start selling tickets online for the new route this afternoon, with the lowest ticket price before tax set at NT$1,950 (US$65) one-way, the carrier said in a statement yesterday.
Vanilla Air launched its Taipei and Tokyo route in December last year. The new route will be its second in Taiwan.
Hanoi slaps tax on steel imports
The Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade announced on Friday last week that it would levy an anti-dumping tax on cold-rolled stainless steel imported from Taiwan, China, Indonesia and Malaysia.
The tariffs, ranging from 3.07 percent to 37.29 percent, is to take effect from Oct. 5, for a period of five years, the ministry said.
Taiwanese steelmakers will be hit with the highest duties — 37.29 percent on Yuan Long Stainless Steel Corp (遠龍不銹鋼) and 13.79 percent on other Taiwanese companies, according to a report posted on the Vietnamese government’s Web site on Tuesday.
Indonesian steel producers will incur the lowest rate at 3.07 percent, while tariffs of between 4.64 percent and 10.71 percent will be levied on Chinese and Malaysian enterprises, the Vietnamese government said.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
RSS