Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) moved up in a ranking of top research-and-development (R&D) spenders in the global semiconductor industry, according to a report released on Tuesday by market research firm IC Insights.
TSMC’s 15 percent R&D spending increase last year, along with a decline in spending at Toshiba Corp and STMicroelectronics NV, helped the Taiwanese company climb two slots to fifth place in the annual ranking.
MediaTek, whose R&D spending increased 29 percent last year, rose from 14th place in 2013 to ninth last year following its acquisition of fellow Taiwanese fabless supplier MStar Semiconductor Inc early last year.
Among the top 10 R&D spenders, five were based in the US and three were from the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan.
The other two were from Europe and Japan.
Intel topped all chip companies in R&D spending, accounting for 36 percent of the R&D expenditures of the 10 top-ranked firms and 21 percent of the US$56 billion in total worldwide semiconductor R&D spending, IC Insights said.
Fabless integrated circuit supplier Qualcomm Inc kept pace with Intel to remain the second-largest spender, a position it first achieved in 2012.
The San Diego-based company had the largest percentage increase among the top 10 with a 62 percent boost in R&D spending.
Samsung Electronics Co trailed in third and Broadcom Corp was ranked fourth.
TSMC’s rank put it ahead of Toshiba in sixth, STMicroelectronics in seventh, Micron Technology Inc in eighth and Nvidia Corp in 10th, the report showed.
Meanwhile, TSMC and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) were the only two Taiwanese companies to be ranked among Fortune magazine’s most admired firms this year.
The ranking released on Tuesday showed that TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, fell one spot to fourth place in the semiconductors category this year.
Asustek, which did not make the list last year, ranked sixth this year in the computers category.
Apple Inc held the top spot in the overall ranking of Fortune’s most admired companies for the eighth year in a row. The iPhone maker this month became the first company to attain a market value of more than US$700 billion.
US search engine Google Inc ranked second, followed by Berkshire Hathaway Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Starbucks Corp.
Fortune rates companies on nine key attributes related to corporate reputation: innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment value, quality of products and services, and global competitiveness.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS