AUTO PARTS
Tong Yang profit up 34%
Automotive metal sheet and bumper manufacturer Tong Yang Industry Co (東陽實業) yesterday posted a pretax profit of NT$153 million (US$5.06 million) for last month, up 34 percent year-on-year, thanks to rising aftermarket sales and more working days than February last year. Combined pretax profit in the first two months of the year was NT$297 million, or earnings per share of NT$0.53, the company said in an e-mail. Despite uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Tong Yang said it plans to focus on niche goods, such as water-based coating and electroplating products, while strengthening its competitiveness in lightweight technology and product research to ensure adequate supplies of parts to automakers in Taiwan and China, the e-mail said.
STEELMAKERS
Buyback fails to halt slide
Shares of Yieh Phui Enterprise Co Ltd (燁輝企業), the nation’s largest manufacturer of galvanized steel, yesterday closed 2 percent lower, despite the company announcing a share buyback program to safeguard the interests of its shareholders. The shares closed at NT$8.35 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The company said its board of directors had approved a plan to repurchase 100 million shares, or 5.23 percent of its issued shares, on the open market. Yieh Phui planned to buy back the shares at NT$8 to NT$9.50 from yesterday through May 15, the company said in a filing with the exchange. Due to falling steel prices, the company’s consolidated revenue fell 18.94 percent year-on-year to NT$59.68 billion last year, while uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic caused revenue to fall by 23.13 percent to NT$7.37 billion in the first two months of this year.
ELECTRONICS
JMC eyes capital reduction
JMC Electronics Co (易華電子), which specializes in chip-on-film technology for LCD driver ICs, yesterday said that its board of directors had approved a plan to reduce its capital by NT$170 million, or 17 percent, to increase shareholder returns and adjust its capital structure. After the capital reduction, which is pending approval by shareholders and regulators, JMC’s paid-in capital would fall to NT$830 million, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing. The company plans to return NT$1.7 per share to shareholders following the capital reduction, in addition to a proposed cash dividend of NT$2 per share. JMC shares yesterday closed 9.67 percent lower at NT$49.05 in Taipei trading. The shares have fallen 39.22 percent so far this year.
TECHNOLOGY
Broadcom update positive
Broadcom Inc last week scrapped its full-year financial forecast because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the US chipmaker’s comments about steady enterprise spending on data centers and 5G infrastructure should be positive for local technology companies, Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) said in a client note. Steady demand for data center equipment should benefit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Parade Technologies Ltd (譜瑞科技), Aspeed Technology Inc (信驊科技) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), Yuanta said. Increased spending on 5G infrastructure would be positive for TSMC, King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電子), LandMark Optoelectronics Corp (聯亞光電) and Elite Advanced Laser Corp (聯鈞光電), it said. However, the coronavirus pandemic would continue to weigh on firms providing smartphone components to Broadcom, such as Win Semiconductors Corp (穩懋半導體), it added.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
Former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) yesterday warned against the tendency to label stakeholders as either “pro-China” or “pro-US,” calling such rigid thinking a “trap” that could impede policy discussions. Liu, an adviser to the Cabinet’s Economic Development Committee, made the comments in his keynote speech at the committee’s first advisers’ meeting. Speaking in front of Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) and other officials, Liu urged the public to be wary of falling into the “trap” of categorizing people involved in discussions into either the “pro-China” or “pro-US” camp. Liu,
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