COMPUTERS
Quanta profit rises 9 percent
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world’s second-largest contract laptop maker, yesterday posted a net profit of NT$4.51 billion (US$149.09 million) for the final quarter of last year, a 9 percent year-on-year increase despite foreign-exchange losses of up to NT$1.05 billion. That led to a full-year net profit of NT$15.94 billion, a 5.5 percent year-on-year increase which translated into earnings per share of NT$4.14. Quanta’s board of directors yesterday proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$3.7 per common share, representing a payout ratio of 89.37 percent. The proposal is subject to shareholders’ approval at the company’s annual general meeting scheduled for June 19 in Taoyuan.
CHIP DESIGNERS
Report hits MediaTek shares
Shares of MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday fell 1.03 percent to close at NT$336.5 in Taipei trading after the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported that the handset chip designer would suffer a 20 percent decline in 4G chip shipments. The report said that the declining shipments were due to MediaTek’s customers, such as Transsion Holdings Co (傳音控股), shutting down their factories in India amid a three-week lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. MediaTek said the report was groundless and that it had retained its guidance for the first quarter.
CHIPMAKERS
TSMC shares fall 2.01%
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday fell 2.01 percent in Taipei trading after the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported that trial production of the contract chipmaker’s advanced 3-nanometer process technology would be postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. TSMC is planning to launch mass production of its 3-nanometer process in 2022, but the report said that the installation of equipment at a fab in Tainan would be delayed from June to October, which would then delay the chipmaker’s trial production set for next year. TSMC refused to comment on the report, saying that the company is focused on developing a 5-nanometer process that is scheduled to begin mass production in the first half of this year.
CHIP TESTERS
ASE proposes NT$2 dividend
The board of directors of ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投資控股) yesterday proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$2 per common share, down from NT$2.5 last year. That represented a payout ratio of 50.5 percent based on the company’s earnings per share of NT$3.96. It implied a dividend yield of 6.69 percent, based on its closing price of NT$59.2 in Taipei trading yesterday. The proposal is subject to shareholders’ approval at the company’s annual general meeting scheduled for June 24.
POULTRY
Charoen income rises 54%
Poultry producer Charoen Pokphand Enterprise (Taiwan) Co Ltd (台灣卜蜂) yesterday posted net income of NT$1.46 billion for last year, a 54 percent increase year-on-year. It represented earnings per share of NT$5.45, the second-highest in the company’s history. Gross margin improved from 14.18 percent to 14.27 percent, while consolidated revenue increased 12 percent year-on-year to NT$21.17 billion, primarily due to a bigger contribution from its food processing business, the company said. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected sales at the hotel, bar and restaurant businesses this year, it said.
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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