Ting Hsin to not sell 101 stake
Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), which is embroiled in a series of food scandals, yesterday said it would not sell its stake in Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFCC, 台北金融大樓公司), because its stake in TFCC is “irrelevant” to the food scandals.
The group said in a statement that its stake in TFCC, which operates Taipei 101, is legal and that it has faith in the nation’s rule of law.
Ting Hsin owns a 37.17 percent stake in TFCC, making it the second-largest shareholder in Taipei 101, only behind the 44.35 percent controlled by the government.
Tourists’ NT$ limit raised
The central bank yesterday raised the limit on the amount of New Taiwan dollars individual tourists may carry upon leaving or entering Taiwan to NT$100,000, from NT$60,000.
The easing, which is to take effect on Jan. 1 next year, aims to make tourism more convenient and to boost the nation’s tourism industry, the central bank said in a statement.
Credit card numbers edge up
The nation has 3.71 million credit cards in circulation, with the number of effective cards standing at 23.82 million last month, slightly up from one month earlier, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
Total card spending amounted to NT$178.9 billion last month, an increase of NT$17.2 billion from August, the commission said.
Revolving credit dropped by NT$800 million to NT$113.6 billion last month from one month earlier, the commission said.
4G subscribers surge
The nation has seen an exponential increase in the number of 4G users in recent months, and the number of users is set to reach 3 million by the end of the year, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) president Shih Mu-piao (石木標) said yesterday.
The speed and depth of the penetration rate may be seen as the highest in the world, surpassing the take-up rate of South Korea when that country first made 4G services available, Shih said at a forum.
As of Oct. 15, there were 1.65 million 4G subscribers in Taiwan, Shih said, referencing National Communications Commission statistics.
The number is expected to hit 3 million with the 4G penetration rate reaching 13 percent by the end of this year, he added.
CAL carries more freight
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), the nation’s largest carrier, said on Wednesday that it moved up one place in the rankings to become the sixth-largest carrier of international air cargo by volume last year, citing the latest report from the International Air Transport Association.
According to the association, CAL carried about 1.2 million tonnes of goods last year, up from 1.1 million tonnes in 2012.
CLA’s cargo shipments in the first eight months of this year increased 13 percent year-on-year amid an improved global economy, and the launch of new technology products is expected to help extend the peak season of the air freight market well into the fourth quarter, CAL said.
Parade predicts fall in sales
Parade Technologies Ltd (譜瑞), a leading video display and interface IC supplier for Apple Inc, is expecting sales of between US$52.5 million and US$57.5 million this quarter, a decline from the US$58.98 million recorded in the last quarter.
The sales guidance estimates a fall of between 2.5 percent and 11 percent from last quarter, the company said yesterday, after reporting net income rose 37.86 percent to US$12.72 million from the previous quarter.
The fabless IC designer said that gross margin would remain at between 40 and 43 percent this quarter, compared with the 41.67 percent recorded last quarter.
Parade is the sole supplier of embedded DisplayPort solutions for the iPad Air and the Retina iPad mini.
Mobile online purchases at 54%
More than half of the nation’s consumers made their most recent online purchase using a mobile phone, the highest proportion in the world, according to a survey released by Google Inc on Wednesday.
The survey, conducted jointly with market research group TNS, found that the 54 percent mobile phone shopping rate was higher than the 45 percent rate seen in the UK and the 43 percent rate seen in China.
It was higher than the rates in South Korea, with 38 percent, Russia with 32 percent, Italy with 31 percent and the US with 26 percent.
The survey received valid responses from 3,100 Taiwanese aged over 16 during the first quarter of this year.
Twitter to allow IBM access
Twitter on Wednesday announced a partnership to allow IBM Corp to access the public stream of tweets to provide businesses with insights for making decisions.
The alliance would put IBM computing expertise, including its Watson artificial intelligence technology, to work extracting insights from Twitter to “enrich business decisions with an entirely new class of data,” IBM chief executive Ginni Rometty said in a release.
IBM plans to access Twitter data to glean answers to questions such as what customers like or dislike about products, or why a company is growing quickly in one country and not another.
The Eurovision Song Contest has seen a surge in punter interest at the bookmakers, becoming a major betting event, experts said ahead of last night’s giant glamfest in Basel. “Eurovision has quietly become one of the biggest betting events of the year,” said Tomi Huttunen, senior manager of the Online Computer Finland (OCS) betting and casino platform. Betting sites have long been used to gauge which way voters might be leaning ahead of the world’s biggest televised live music event. However, bookmakers highlight a huge increase in engagement in recent years — and this year in particular. “We’ve already passed 2023’s total activity and
BIG BUCKS: Chairman Wei is expected to receive NT$34.12 million on a proposed NT$5 cash dividend plan, while the National Development Fund would get NT$8.27 billion Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that its board of directors approved US$15.25 billion in capital appropriations for long-term expansion to meet growing demand. The funds are to be used for installing advanced technology and packaging capacity, expanding mature and specialty technology, and constructing fabs with facility systems, TSMC said in a statement. The board also approved a proposal to distribute a NT$5 cash dividend per share, based on first-quarter earnings per share of NT$13.94, it said. That surpasses the NT$4.50 dividend for the fourth quarter of last year. TSMC has said that while it is eager
‘IMMENSE SWAY’: The top 50 companies, based on market cap, shape everything from technology to consumer trends, advisory firm Visual Capitalist said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) was ranked the 10th-most valuable company globally this year, market information advisory firm Visual Capitalist said. TSMC sat on a market cap of about US$915 billion as of Monday last week, making it the 10th-most valuable company in the world and No. 1 in Asia, the publisher said in its “50 Most Valuable Companies in the World” list. Visual Capitalist described TSMC as the world’s largest dedicated semiconductor foundry operator that rolls out chips for major tech names such as US consumer electronics brand Apple Inc, and artificial intelligence (AI) chip designers Nvidia Corp and Advanced
Pegatron Corp (和碩), an iPhone assembler for Apple Inc, is to spend NT$5.64 billion (US$186.82 million) to acquire HTC Corp’s (宏達電) factories in Taoyuan and invest NT$578.57 million in its India subsidiary to expand manufacturing capacity, after its board approved the plans on Wednesday. The Taoyuan factories would expand production of consumer electronics, and communication and computing devices, while the India investment would boost production of communications devices and possibly automotive electronics later, a Pegatron official told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday. Pegatron expects to complete the Taoyuan factory transaction in the third quarter, said the official, who declined to be
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