TECHNOLOGY
Quanta posts April sales dip
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which assembles Apple Inc’s 12-inch MacBook and Apple Watch, yesterday reported 15 percent monthly decline in sales to NT$67.52 billion (US$2.19 billion) for last month. On an annual basis, Quanta’s sales dropped by 7 percent from last year’s NT$72.58 billion. The company’s consolidated revenues totaled NT$272.71 billion in the first four months of this year, down 5.45 percent from NT$288.42 billion made in last year. Quanta is scheduled to host a news conference on its first-quarter financial results on Thursday.
SOLAR ENERGY
Gintech posts Q1 loss
Gintech Energy Corp (昱晶), one of the nation’s biggest solar cell makers, yesterday posted a quarterly loss of NT$296 million for the first quarter of this year — its third straight — as solar prices slumped. Revenue plunged by 23.2 percent to NT$3.07 billion last quarter from the previous quarter. Gross margin was minus-2.16 percent. To improve its financial structure, Gintech’s board approved an issue of 50 million new shares to raise funds via private placements, and an issue of 130 million shares for existing shareholders, or for overseas investors in the form of global depositary receipts. The fundraising plans need shareholders’ approval, with a meeting scheduled for June 22. In a separate statement, solar cell maker Motech Industries Inc (茂迪) said its board approved a merger with Topcell Solar International Co (聯景光電) on June 1, a month early.
ELECTRONICS
DRAM revenue slides
Global DRAM revenue fell by 7.5 percent sequentially last quarter to US$12 billion, according to DRAMexchange, a division of TrendForce Corp (集邦科技). The decline in revenue is the result of an 11 percent quarterly decrease of the average DRAM contract price due to seasonally slack PC and smartphone demand. DRAM chipmakers, however, were able to keep their gross margins flat last quarter by migrating to cost-efficient technologies, DRAMexchange assistant vice president Ken Kuo (郭祚榮) said. DRAMexchange forecasts the DRAM industry will be worth US$51.2 billion this year, an annual increase of 12 percent. South Korean companies Samsung and SK Hynix respectively took 43 percent and 27 percent of the global DRAM market in the first three months of this year, the researcher said. The US-based DRAM maker Micron Technology Inc grabbed 22.5 percent, it said. Taiwan’s Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) seized a 3.2 percent share.
STOCKS
TAIEX closes down
The TAIEX closed lower for a fifth straight session yesterday on weakness in small and medium-cap stocks after a promising start. The market opened just under 1 percent higher as financial stocks benefited from a surge on Wall Street on Friday and an interest rate cut by the People’s Bank of China, but it fell into negative territory within 90 minutes and never recovered. The TAIEX closed down 28.28 points, or 0.29 percent, at 9,663.72 after trading between a high of 9,797.19 and a low of 9,635.88. Turnover was NT$95.76 billion. It was the index’s eighth fall in nine sessions since the TAIEX closed at a 15-year high of 9,973.12 on April 27. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the most heavily weighted stock on the local market, closed 1.37 percent higher at NT$148.5, while smartphone camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) gained 1.92 percent to close at NT$3,180.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
A new worry has been rippling across the stock market lately: Entire businesses, not just their employees, might be thrown out of work. While most economists say fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) job apocalypse are overblown, seismic shifts have happened in the past after big tech breakthroughs. The IT revolution of the 1990s led to a surge in productivity that sped up the US economy for several years. It also rendered companies or even industries largely redundant — from travel agents and stockbrokers to classified advertising and newspapers, or video rental stores. Economists expect AI would deliver higher productivity,
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