AIRLINES
CAL disinfects plane
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday said that it sterilized an airplane thoroughly after it flew on Saturday from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to Wuxi in China’s Jiangsu Province carrying a passenger who had a fever. Flight IT129 (CI8609) by Tigerair Taiwan Co (台灣虎航), the CAL-owned low-cost carrier, underwent a thorough disinfection in Wuxi before returning to Taoyuan airport on Saturday, CAL said. The company said that the passenger, who sat in row 11, was immediately taken to a hospital in China. It did not disclose the passenger’s nationality. CAL has provided Chinese authorities with information about the 42 other passengers who sat in rows 8 to 14, the airline said.
HYPERMARKETS
Carrefour branch to close
France-based hypermarket chain operator Carrefour SA on Friday said that its store on Dongxing Street in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) would cease operations on March 9 due to adjustments in the company’s business development plan. With the closure, the number of Carrefour stores in Taiwan will fall to 136, comprised of 68 hypermarkets and 68 24-hour supermarket-like Carrefour Market stores. The Chinese-language Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) on Saturday reported that the closure of the store, which has operated for 16 years, is to come after the maturity of a lease for the site. Data compiled by Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) showed home prices within 700m of the Carrefour hypermarket on Dongxing Road averaged NT$714,000 (US$23,700) per ping (3.3m2), the second-highest such figure among the 13 hypermarkets in Taipei.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
Protectionism: US trade chief Katherine Tai said the hikes would help to counter unfair trade practices from China, while boosting domestic clean energy investments US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) defended stiff tariff hikes against countries such as China, saying that paired with investment, they were a “legitimate and constructive” tool for reinvigorating domestic industries. Tai’s comments come a week after sharp tariff increases on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), EV batteries and solar cells took effect — with levies down the line on other products also recently finalized. The latest moves targeting US$18 billion in Chinese goods come weeks before next month’s US presidential election, with Democrats and Republicans pushing a hard line on China as competition between Washington and Beijing intensifies. In an interview on Thursday
RSS