BANKING
Credit cards hit record high
The nation’s credit card spending rose 8.3 percent last year to NT$2.62 trillion (US$89.7 billion) from NT$2.42 trillion in 2016, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed yesterday. The figure represents a record level and the fourth consecutive year credit card spending exceeded the NT$2 trillion mark, Banking Bureau Deputy Director Wang Li-chun (王立群) said at a news conference.
ENERGY
LPG products to cost less
State-run refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said it has decided to lower prices for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) items this month, while keeping the prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) products unchanged. From today, prices for household LPG are to decrease by NT$2.7 per kilogram and by NT$1.4 per liter for LPG used in cars to reflect a decline in international LPG contract prices, CPC said in a statement. The price of a 20kg household gas cylinder is to drop by NT$54, CPC said. Separately, the refiner said Lee Shun-chin (李順欽) on Wednesday formally became the company’s new president, replacing Liu Cheng-hsie (劉晟熙), who is to become chairman of CPC Shell Lubricants Co Ltd (中殼潤滑油), a CPC subsidiary.
TECHNOLOGY
Tri Chemical plans plant
Tri Chemical Electronic Materials Taiwan Inc (三化電子材料), a subsidiary of Japan’s Tri Chemical Laboratories Inc, plans to invest NT$300 million in setting up a new plant in Miaoli’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) branch of the Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), aiming to develop it into a major base for semiconductor materials, local online news outlet investor.com yesterday reported. The investment would also focus on the development of energy materials and equipment related to chemical medicine, the report said. Annual revenue generated from the new plant is expected to exceed NT$500 million three years after its establishment, it said.
MANUFACTURING
Tatung chairman resigns
Home appliance maker Tatung Co (大同) yesterday said chairman Lin Wei-shan (林蔚山) has decided to step down from his post and the company’s board has agreed that president Lin Kuo Wen-yen (林郭文艷) is to replace him. The move came after several shareholders demanded Lin Wei-shan resign over a corporate embezzlement scandal. He has appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the Taiwan High Court in August last year that sentenced him to eight years in prison for funneling the company’s funds into Nature Worldwide Technology Corp (通達) and violating the Securities Exchange Act (證券交易法). Lin Kuo Wen-yen is Lin Wei-shan’s wife.
MANUFACTURING
FPG’s low-carbon move
Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) is to make the circular economy one of its top priorities this year, group chairman William Wong (王文淵) said at a year-end banquet for Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) yesterday. The group aims to transform its plant in Kaohsiung’s Renwu District (仁武) into a “low carbon” production base, using natural gas as fuel to replace coal, a Formosa Plastics official said on the sidelines of the gathering. Wang also delivered a relatively positive near-term business outlook, saying that the group’s earnings performance so far “meets his expectations.” Four major units of the group saw their combined net income reach NT$237.25 billion last year, a 14.2 percent annual increase, data showed.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
SK Hynix Inc warned of increased volatility in the second half of this year despite resilient demand for artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips from big tech providers, reflecting the uncertainty surrounding US tariffs. The company reported a better-than-projected 158 percent jump in March-quarter operating income, propelled in part by stockpiling ahead of US President Donald Trump’s tariffs. SK Hynix stuck with a forecast for a doubling in demand for the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) essential to Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, which in turn drive giant data centers built by the likes of Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc. That SK Hynix is maintaining its
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