ELECTRONICS
Young Fast loses NT$902m
Touchpanel maker Young Fast Optoelectronics Co (洋華光電), which counts Samsung Electronics Co as its top client, posted a bigger quarterly loss of NT$902 million (US$28.86 million) for last quarter after booking an asset loss of NT$682 million. The company lost NT$429 million in the third quarter of last year. That brought the company’s total loss last year to NT$1.81 billion, deepening from a loss of NT$1.63 billion in 2012. Young Fast posted a loss for a third straight year last year. Company chairman Albert Pai (白志強) told investors yesterday that this year would be another difficult period for the company because of an ongoing price decline. The company will continue to cut costs by streamlining its workforce.
STEEL
EU imposes tariffs
The EU has imposed tariffs as high as 25.2 percent on stainless steel from China and Taiwan to curb competition for EU producers, such as Acerinox SA and Outokumpu Oyj. The duties punish Chinese and Taiwanese exporters of cold-rolled flat products for allegedly selling them in the EU’s 5.5 billion euro (US$6 billion) market below cost, a practice known as dumping. This kind of steel is used in everything from elevators and tanks to boilers and kitchen equipment. EU producers that also include Acciai Speciali Terni SpA and Aperam suffered “material injury” as a result of dumped imports from China and Taiwan, the European Commission, the 28-nation EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said yesterday in the Official Journal. The levies, which take effect today, are for six months and may be extended for five years.
TRADE
Cross-strait talks next week
The 10th round of the cross-strait trade in goods talks will be held starting on Tuesday next week at the earliest in China, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Given that Beijing and Seoul have initiated their free-trade pact, Taiwan will work on getting more favorable tax treatments than South Korea from Beijing during the three-day talks, Vice Minister Bill Cho (卓士昭) told a press conference. Bureau of Foreign Trade Director-General Yang Jen-ni (楊珍妮) will lead Taiwan’s negotiation team, while Bejing’s team is likely to again be led by Chen Xing (陳星), head of the Chinese Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, the ministry said.
ECONOMY
Money supply increasing
The nation’s money supply increased year-on-year last month with the broad gauge advancing faster than the narrow indicator, extending the so-called “death cross,” the central bank said yesterday. The broad M2 money supply gained 6.51 percent year-on-year last month, while the narrow money supply reading of M1B rose by 6.12 percent, ending six months of slowdown, the bank said. The bank dismissed concerns of a possible liquidity crunch, citing net foreign fund inflows for the past two months.
SMARTPHONES
Apple leads Taiwan’s market
Apple Inc led Taiwan’s smartphone market in sales volume and sales value, and had the best-selling single model for the fifth consecutive month last month, according to statistics released yesterday by industry sources. A total of 771,000 smartphones were sold in Taiwan last month, down 3.4 percent from a month earlier, the figures showed.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
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