MANAGEMENT
TFCC chair quitting
Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) yesterday confirmed that Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFCC, 台北金融大樓) chairwoman Christina Sung (宋文琪) had expressed her intention to leave her post as soon as Dec. 6 due to personal reasons. Chang said the government is looking for a suitable candidate to take over management of Taipei 101. Candidates must be skilled in foreign languages, public relations and management, he said, adding that such a candidate is hard to find.
ELECTRONICS
Yageo expects slowdown
Yageo Corp (國巨), the nation’s largest passive components manufacturer, yesterday said it expects demand this quarter to be affected by a seasonal slowdown. The company reported a 70 percent sequential increase in net income to NT$1.23 billion (US$37.7 million), or NT$1.86 per share, last quarter. Yageo attributed the rise to non-operating gains of NT$623 million — including an investment gain of NT$60 million, interest income of NT$53 million and foreign exchange gains of NT$218 million. Cumulative net income in the first three quarters of the year reached NT$2.89 billion, or earnings per share of NT$4.32, Yageo said.
Gaming
X-Legend back in black
Online game publisher X-Legend Entertainment Co (傳奇網路) yesterday said it swung into profit last quarter, bolstered by robust sales of new products and better operating expense control. Net income was NT$48 million last quarter, or earnings per share of NT$0.43, the company said. That compares with a net loss per share of NT$0.51 in the second quarter. In the first 10 months of the year, revenue totaled N$97.61 billion, down 17 percent year-on-year, the company said.
MANUFACTURING
St Shine makes forex gains
Contact lens supplier St Shine Optical Co (精華光學) on Tuesday reported a third-quarter profit of NT$471 million, up 41.7 percent year-on-year, due to better-than-expected foreign exchange gains of NT$130 million. Earnings per share were NT$9.35 last quarter, while gross margin recovered to 36.4 percent and operating margin increased to 27.5 percent on the back of a rising utilization rate and stronger order flow from Japan and Taiwan.Daiwa Capital Markets in a client note forecast that St Shine’s sales would grow 7.4 percent year-on-year this year, while net profit would drop 10.7 percent mainly due to a shrinking gross margin.
ELECTRONICS
HTC sales improve slightly
HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday reported sales of NT$8.95 billion (US$274.62 million) for last month, down 43.2 percent from last year’s NT$15.75 billion, but up 26.05 percent from NT$7.1 billion in the prior month, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. HTC on Friday last week said its sales and earnings for this quarter would show incremental improvement from last quarter, thanks to the launch of its latest flagship model and an ongoing financial restructuring.
ELECTRONICS
Acer predicts subsidy boost
Acer Inc (宏碁) is optimistic that its smartphone sales in Taiwan would rise at least 25 percent to more than 100,000 units next year from this year’s 80,000, Acer Taiwan operations president Towny Huang (黃鐘鋒) said yesterday. The company’s smartphone business is expected to benefit from the government’s recent announcement of a subsidy for consumers upgrading from 2G phones to 4G smartphones. About 1 million people still use 2G phones in the nation, Huang said.
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,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
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
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