TELECOMS
Taiwan Star to end 4G offer
Taiwan Star Cellular Corp (台灣之星), a telecommunications arm of Ting Hsin International Group (頂新國際集團), yesterday said it is ending its low-priced 4G flat-rate package by the end of this month. Starting next month, Taiwan Star will stop offering its unlimited 4G service package that carries a minimum monthly charge of NT$599. The number of subscribers to this package rose threefold this week from last week, the company said. Mobile users who prefer flat-rate packages can still subscribe to Taiwan Star’s 4G service packages with higher minimum monthly fees ranging from NT$799 to NT$2,599.
RETAIL
FamilyMart, I-Mei team up
Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店), the nation’s second-largest convenience store operator with 2,952 stores nationwide, yesterday said it was forming a strategic alliance with I-Mei Foods Co Ltd (義美食品) to sell up to 100 I-Mei products, after the retailer started selling I-Mei soybean milk products on March 4. FamilyMart said it sold 500,000 bottles of I-Mei soybean milk products per week, raising the company’s soybean milk sales by 80 percent. The convenience store operator added that it plans to choose 200 to 300 outlets in residential areas to set up independent store shelves for I-Mei products in May.
ELECTRONICS
Everlight to build new plant
Leading LED lighting and product supplier Everlight Electronics Co (億光電子) said it would invest NT$1.3 billion (US$41.2 million) to purchase land, facilities and equipment for a factory in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼). The new factory is expected to begin a test run early next year. To meet the firm’s capacity expansion needs, Everlight’s board on Wednesday approved a five-year unsecured convertible bond issue of NT$5 billion, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing. Last year, Everlight posted a net income of NT$2.2 billion, or NT$5.12 per share. The board this week proposed distributing cash dividends of NT$4 per share, implying a dividend yield of 5.17 percent based on yesterday’s closing price of NT$77.4.
FOOD
UBS upgrades Uni-President
UBS Securities Ptd Ltd yesterday upgraded its rating for Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), the nation’s largest food-and-beverage conglomerate, to “buy” from “neutral,” on expectations that a turnaround in the firm’s beverage business in China would boost its earnings growth this year and next. Uni-President Enterprises could also see continued margin expansion this year, as the company extends its product portfolio restructuring to “all” products following last year’s food safety scandals, UBS said in a research note. The brokerage raised its price target for Uni-President from NT$51 to NT$58, or 24 times its estimated earnings per share of NT$2.42. The stock closed flat at NT$51.50 yesterday.
PROPERTY
Kee Tai income up 43.2%
Kee Tai Properties Co (基泰建設) yesterday reported stellar earnings for last year and announced plans to distribute cash dividends of NT$1.25 per share. Net income rose 43.2 percent from a year ago to NT$1.3 billion, or NT$3.18 per share. With the stock closing at NT$20.45 yesterday, the proposed cash dividends imply a yield of 6.11 percent.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
NATURAL PARTNERS: Taiwan and Japan have complementary dominant supply chain positions, are geographically and culturally close, and have similar work ethics Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other related companies would add ￥11.2 trillion (US$78.31 billion) to Japan’s chipmaking hot spot Kumamoto Prefecture over the next decade, a local bank’s analysis said. Kyushu Financial Group, a lender based in Kumamoto’s capital, almost doubled its projection for the economic impact that the chip sector would bring to the region compared to its estimate a year earlier, a presentation on Thursday said. The bank said that 171 firms had made new investments since November 2021, up from 90 in an earlier analysis. TSMC’s Kumamoto location was once a sleepy farming area, but has undergone
RSS