STOCK MARKETS
Shares fall 93.5 points
Taiwanese shares closed down yesterday as investors locked in early gains amid lingering concerns over tensions between Washington and Beijing. The bellwether electronics sector was the focus of the selling as investors moved away from a record closing on the tech-heavy NASDAQ in the US overnight, dealers said. However, rotational buying in some old-economy stocks helped prevent a steeper fall of the broader market, they said. The TAIEX closed down 93.5 points, or 0.73 percent, at the day’s low of 12,778.64. Turnover was NT$253.685 billion (US$8.6 billion). Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$635 million of shares on the main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The market is likely to see more volatility in the wake of high valuations, analysts said.
MANUFACTURING
Yeong Guan profit rises
Yeong Guan Energy Technology Group Co (永冠能源), which produces advanced casting components for specialized applications, yesterday reported net profit of NT$58.07 million for last month, or earnings per share of NT$0.55, up 541 percent year-on-year. Revenue grew 19 percent from a year earlier to NT$802 million, the company said. As wind power customers continue to maintain high orders, and demand for injection molding machines and industrial machinery remains stable, shipments this year are expected to be between 165,000 tonnes and 175,000 tonnes, Yeong Guan said, adding that shipments would grow further next year as other industries recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Renewable energy-related products would be the company’s major growth drivers in the next one to two years, it said.
SOFTWARE
IKala completes fundraising
IKala Interactive Media Inc (愛卡拉), which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help e-commerce retailers gather and analyze customer data, yesterday said it has completed a US$17 million Series B fundraising program, bringing the total it has raised so far to US$30.3 million. The program is led by Wistron Digital Technology Holding Co (緯創數技投資控股), with investments from Hotung Investment Holdings Ltd (和通創投) and Pacific Venture Partners (怡和創投) among others. “With Wistron as a strategic partner, iKala can become a major driving force for transforming Taiwan into an AI industry and talent hub in Asia,” iKala board director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said in a statement. The company plans to use the funds to improve its AI research capability and expand into new Southeast Asian markets, it said.
AIRLINES
Tigerair touts couples offer
Budget carrier Tigerair Taiwan Ltd (台灣虎航) is inviting people to celebrate Lovers’ Day with a half-day “flight experience.” Flight IT-2020 is to operate on Saturday and Tuesday next week, which is Lovers’ Day, allowing couples a nearly three-hour sightseeing trip that departs and lands at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Tigerair said on Monday. The tickets, which are sold in sets of two for NT$20,520, include lodging and dining services, as well as offers on other flights, it said. People who purchase the tickets are entitled to free Tigerair Taiwan round-trip tickets to any of its destinations within a year of border restrictions being lifted — if the couple is still together, the carrier said. If the couple has a child between now and when they redeem the flight, the child would fly free, it said.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
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