CTBC sells US dollar bonds
CTBC Bank (中信銀行), the nation’s largest credit card issuer, on Thursday sold US$290 million worth of senior unsecured bonds in Taiwan, which carry a fixed coupon rate of 4.1 percent and will mature on Oct. 9, 2034, if there is no early redemption by the bank.
The 20-year US dollar-denominated bonds are listed on the GRETAI Securities Market. The bank said it would use the proceeds of the sale to support its diversified funding base.
Several US banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Citigroup Inc have issued US dollar bonds in the nation this year, after lawmakers in May excluded locally issued foreign currency denominated bonds from a 45 percent cap on the amount insurance firms can invest in overseas assets.
MediaTek partners Amazon
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s top handset chipmaker, announced on Friday that it is working with Amazon.com Inc to help power the online retailing giant’s new line of Fire tablets: the Fire HD 6, Fire HD 7 and Fire HD Kids Edition.
The new tablets feature MediaTek’s MT8135 system-on-chip and MT6628 connectivity solution and are designed for consumers looking for high performance at an affordable price, the Taiwanese company said in a statement.
The Fire HD tablets are available for purchase worldwide and come in two sizes: a 6-inch model selling for US$99 and a 7-inch version priced at US$139.
The Fire HD Kids Edition retails at US$149 for a 6-inch tablet and US$189 for the 7-inch model.
Department store sales rise
In the first eight months of this year, sales generated by the local department store sector were up 6 percent from a year earlier to NT$182.1 billion (US$6 billion), the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Saturday.
Because the fourth quarter is a traditional peak season for the department store business — accounting for about 33 percent of its annual sales — the sector is expected to post record-high sales this year, the ministry said in a statement posted on its Web site.
According to the ministry, sales for this year could reach NT$300 billion, up from last year’s NT$288.6 billion.
Salary growth regionally low
The average monthly salary of employees in the domestic industry and services sector was US$1,533.9 last year, representing a 9 percent increase since the financial crisis of 2008, but a growth rate that is still less than half of that in Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported on Saturday.
The average salary grew by 25.9 percent in Hong Kong, 22 percent in South Korea and 31.4 percent in Singapore over the five-year period, the newspaper said.
The average salary in Singapore was US$3,693.8 last year, about 2.4 times that of Taiwan, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data cited by the newspaper.
Although the local economy has improved since 2008, only 18.8 percent of firms raised salaries for their employees last year, according to a survey by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics.
Taipei property deals drop
Commercial property transactions in Taipei fell more than 30 percent in the first seven months of the year, as local life insurance companies reduced domestic buying in favor of overseas investments, a real-estate agency said on Friday.
Citing statistics, UM House Group said that transactions involving shops and offices in Taipei dropped by an annual 34 percent to 323 units from January to July. The value of commercial property transactions in the capital fell 34.7 percent year-on-year to NT$17.29 billion over the period, it said.
MOEA group heads to US
A delegation organized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is set to depart for the US today on a week-long visit to lure investment and talent from the country to Taiwan.
The delegation is headed by Vivian Lien (連玉蘋), director of the ministry’s Department of Investment Services, and will focus on the semiconductor equipment and biotechnology sectors during their visits to New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
It is also to hold two job fairs in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, showcasing 530 job openings.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
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