LCD DISPLAYS
Innolux’s Tuan to remain
Innolux Corp (群創), the nation’s largest LCD panel maker, yesterday said company chairman and chief executive officer Tuan Hsing-chien (段行建) would stay at his post until his term expires in June 2016, dismissing speculation about Tuan’s early retirement. The company’s statement came after DigiTimes reported that Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團) vice chairman Tai Cheng-wu (戴正吳) would replace Tuan as Innolux’s new chairman, while Kay Chiu (邱創儀) would take over from Wang Jyh-chau (王志超) as the company’s president. Chiu is currently in charge of Hon Hai’s LCD manufacturing business. Innolux said the report was groundless and that the company would carefully pick candidates for the two positions. Innolux has 9,900 workers and generated NT$400 billion (US$12.4 billion) in revenue last year.
LOGISTICS
Wan Hai to start new route
Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運), the nation’s third-largest container shipper by fleet size, has announced a plan to further expand its intensive intra-Asia network by launching a service between Greater Kaohsiung, China and Southeast Asia, with the maiden voyage set to commence from Kaohsiung Port on Sunday. The joint service with APL Ltd — a major US-based container shipper — is to consist of three vessels of 3,000 twenty-foot equivalent size, with Wan Hai deploying one vessel and APL deploying the other two, Wan Hai said in a statement. “The new service will enhance connections between China and ASEAN countries,” the statement said. The service rotation would be Kaohsiung; Xiamen, China; Hong Kong; Chiwan, China; Port Kelang, Malaysia; Singapore; Jakarta, Indonesia; Singapore; and Kaohsiung.
TRANSPORTATION
Vanilla Air adds flights
Japanese low-cost carrier Vanilla Air yesterday said that it would increase the number of flights on its Taipei to Tokyo route over the Lunar New Year period to meet higher expected demand. The budget airline, which operates three round-trip flights per day on that route, said it would offer an additional four flights during the holiday season. On Feb. 17 and Feb. 23, there would be one additional daily flight departing from Tokyo’s Narita International Airport at 7:45pm and arriving at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 10:45pm, the airline said. The same would apply on Feb. 18 and Feb. 24, except that the flights will go in the opposite direction, taking off from Taipei at 6:50am and landing in Tokyo at 10:50am, the airline said.
FOREX
NT dollar rebounds slightly
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, gaining NT$0.062 to close at NT$31.753, as the local currency staged a technical rebound from its latest slump. The gains posted by the NT dollar ended a six-session losing streak, as the central bank significantly slowed down its efforts to prop up the US dollar in the past few sessions, dealers said. Foreign institutional buying on the local bourse also lent support to the NT dollar and added downward pressure on the greenback throughout the session, dealers said. The buying of the NT dollar by local exporters was aimed at meeting seasonal demand for funds as the month’s end approached, dealers said. Before yesterday’s rebound, the NT dollar had fallen 1.09 percent against the US dollar in the previous three sessions amid strong intervention by the local central bank.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
RSS