SEMICONDUCTORS
Macronix sets dividend
Memorychip maker Macronix International Co (旺宏電子) on Friday said its board had approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$1 per common share after the firm swung into the black last year after five unprofitable years. The proposed dividend, which would be the first since 2012, represents a 2.09 percent dividend yield based on the company’s stock price of NT$47.9. Macronix made NT$5.52 billion (US$188.84 million) in net profit last year, with earnings per share of NT$3.12. The board also approved a program to raise funds by issuing 360 million common shares among overseas investors, the firm said.
ELECTRONICS
PCB industry sees growth
Total production value of the nation’s printed circuit board (PCB) industry is expected to increase 4 percent this year, following 9.5 percent growth to NT$610 billion last year, Taiwan Printed Circuit Association chairman Rick Wu (吳永輝) said on Friday at a public event. Wu, who is president of flexible PCB producer Career Technology Co (嘉聯益), thanked the association’s members for supporting it as it enters its 20th year. Issues such as “smart manufacturing” and “global competence” would be key to the industry’s future, he said.
FINANCE
Promotion, dividend set
Shin Kong Financial Holding Co (新光金控) on Friday said that it had appointed senior vice president Huang Min-yi (黃敏義) to serve as president, replacing Catherine Lee (李紀珠), who would continue to serve as vice chairman. It also announced that its board had approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$0.35 per common share and plus a stock dividend of 1.5 percent. The cash dividend will be the firm’s highest in 10 years.
Japanese technology giant Softbank Group Corp said Tuesday it has sold its stake in Nvidia Corp, raising US$5.8 billion to pour into other investments. It also reported its profit nearly tripled in the first half of this fiscal year from a year earlier. Tokyo-based Softbank said it sold the stake in Silicon Vally-based Nvidia last month, a move that reflects its shift in focus to OpenAI, owner of the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT. Softbank reported its profit in the April-to-September period soared to about 2.5 trillion yen (about US$13 billion). Its sales for the six month period rose 7.7 percent year-on-year
CRESTING WAVE: Companies are still buying in, but the shivers in the market could be the first signs that the AI wave has peaked and the collapse is upon the world Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported a new monthly record of NT$367.47 billion (US$11.85 billion) in consolidated sales for last month thanks to global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Last month’s figure represented 16.9 percent annual growth, the slowest pace since February last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 11 percent. Cumulative sales in the first 10 months of the year grew 33.8 percent year-on-year to NT$3.13 trillion, a record for the same period in the company’s history. However, the slowing growth in monthly sales last month highlights uncertainty over the sustainability of the AI boom even as
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
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