INVESTMENT
Kunshan’s ranking falls
Kunshan in China’s Jiangsu Province, which had topped a local trade group’s survey for six previous years in the overall investment rankings among Taiwanese firms, fell out of the top spot in this year’s poll, according to an annual report released by the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 電電公會) yesterday. The TEEMA report showed that, in terms of investment attractiveness, Suzhou Industrial Park, Xiamen Island, Chengdu in Sichuan Province, Suzhou City and the Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou were the top five locations, in that order. Kunshan’s ranking dropped to No. 6 this year, amid stricter environmental protection measures in the city following the blast at Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products Co Ltd (昆山中榮金屬) last year, the report said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Adimmune sees share surge
Vaccine maker Adimmune Corp (國光生技) yesterday saw its shares surge 9.8 percent after the company began buying back its shares to ensure the interest of their shareholders. The company on Tuesday announced to buy back up to 5 million shares, or 2.1 percent of total shares in circulation, at NT$15 to NT$26 each. The buyback scheme, at total costs under NT$1.59 billion (US$48.52 million), began yesterday and would run through Oct. 25. Adimmune shares have tumbled 44.55 percent so far this year, and closed at NT$16.8 yesterday in Taipei trading. The company told investors last week that it is not concerned about growing competition from Medigen Biotechnology Corp (基亞生物科技).
COMPUTERS
Wistron eyes buy back plan
Contract notebook computer maker Wistron Corp (緯創) yesterday said its board approved a plan to buy back 80 million common shares, or 3.13 percent of outstanding shares, at between NT$12 and NT$23 per share on the open market. The company plans to spend up to NT$40.35 billion in the repurchase scheme, which starts today and runs until Oct. 26. Wistron said it will distribute those shares to employees after completing the repurchase as part of an incentive program. Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) yesterday said the valuation of Wistron is approaching attractive levels and investors can bottom fish the stock at a time when the company faces favorable foreign exchange rates and potential orders for Windows 10-powered notebook computers. “We reiterate our view that selected PC/EMS names have seen meaningful corrections and their share prices could have seen the bottom,” Yuanta Securities analyst Vincent Chen (陳豐丰) wrote in a client note.
TELECOMS
Cloud collaboration
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) yesterday said it had reached a strategic alliance agreement with Microsoft Corp, regarding their future collaboration in cloud solution provider (CSP) and cloud OS network (COSN) services. A company statement said the partnership with the US software company is aimed to better serve the cloud-computing needs of government and corporate clients in Taiwan through three approaches: Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and Software as a service (SaaS). The two companies collaboration will take effect on Sept. 1, according to the statement. Yesterday’s agreement was signed in Taipei by Chunghwa and Microsoft representatives.
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
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