ECONOMY
Growth likely slowed
Taiwan’s economic growth likely slowed sharply this year because of a slower pace of growth in the Asia region, UBS AG said yesterday in a research report, while cutting its GDP growth forecast by half from a 2.3 percent estimate it made earlier this year. Switzerland’s biggest bank said the nation’s GDP probably increased at a 1.2 percent annual rate this year, less than the 1.56 percent predicted by the government in August. However, GDP could stage a mild recovery next year by expanding 2.4 percent annually, UBS said. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics is to update its third-quarter GDP growth and full-year economic growth forecasts today.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Win expects sales rise
Win Semiconductors Corp (穩懋半導體) yesterday forecast its sales for this quarter would be higher than last quarter’s NT$2.913 billion (US$88.66 million) as the company expects clients’ inventory correction issues should be resolved by the end of the year. The foundry services provider of gallium arsenide components used in handsets said sales will probably increase between 5 percent and 10 percent from last quarter, with gross margin to stay flat at 40.4 percent. Win Semiconductors reported net income of NT$805 million for last quarter, up 7 percent from a year earlier, with earnings per share of NT$1.32. In the first three quarters, cumulative earnings per share reached NT$2.81, the company said.
CHIPMAKERS
Macronix losses continue
Macronix International Co (旺宏電子), which supplies memory chips to Japanese video game console maker Nintendo Co, yesterday posted a third-quarter loss — its 15th quarterly loss in a row — though losses shrank on a quarterly basis. The Hsinchu-based company posted a net loss of NT$949 million, or NT$0.27 per share, last quarter, 22 percent less than the previous quarter. The firm said its gross margin rose 2 percentage points to 14 percent from the second quarter due to better product mix, with revenue increasing 14 percent to NT$5.65 billion. In the first three quarters, Macronix reported losses of NT$0.72 per share. The company said it expects turnaround in the second half of next year.
COMPUTER MAKERS
Outlook improved: Asustek
Asustek Computer Inc chairman Jonney Shih (施崇棠) yesterday said the outlook for the global PC industry seems better than expected this quarter, without elaborating. Shih’s remarks, made on the sidelines of a summit for business leaders in Taiwan, came after International Data Corp and Gartner Inc reported earlier this month sharp declines in third-quarter PC shipments worldwide, countering hopes that the release of Microsoft Corp’s Windows 10 operating system might spur demand.
CHEMICALS
Sunko merger announced
Sunko Ink Co (三晃), which is principally engaged in the manufacture and distribution of chemical products, yesterday said that its board had agreed to merge with Kuo Ching Chemical Co (國慶). Sunko is to be the surviving entity, it said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing. The company is planning to issue 145 million new shares to facilitate the share-swap deal, in which Kuo Ching shareholders are to receive 1.6 Sunko shares for every one Kuo Ching share. The deal is expected to be closed on May 10 next year, Sunko said.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
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