The nation’s listed companies reported combined Chinese investment gains of NT$154.3 billion (US$5.23 billion) in the first half of the year, up 37 percent year-on-year, and the highest for the period, Financial Supervisory Commission data released on Tuesday showed, as some companies recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and benefited from rising demand for devices used for remote working.
Chinese investment gains plunged 36 percent annually to NT$23.3 billion in the first quarter due to the COVID-19 outbreak, but increased 72 percent to NT$131 billion in the second quarter, the data showed.
“Demand for remote-working devices and consumer electronics rose, as people needed to work from home while under lockdown, which benefited our electronic providers,” Securities and Futures Bureau Deputy Director-General Tsai Li-ling (蔡麗玲) said.
Listed companies trimmed their investments in China by NT$4 billion in the second quarter, despite investment gains, data showed.
As of the end of June, listed firms’ accumulated investment in China totaled NT$2.524 trillion, up NT$13.4 billion from the end of last year, while the number of listed firms with investments in China dropped to 1,191, seven fewer than the end of last year, data showed.
Tsai said that the number of listed companies investing in China tends to fluctuate, so it was uncertain whether the pandemic could be blamed for firms leaving the market.
“While some firms left the market, other companies continued expanding production there or set up new subsidiaries,” Tsai said. “Computer firms and electronic component providers particularly increased their investment.”
Listed companies repatriated NT$18.1 billion of investment gains to Taiwan during the first half of this year, accounting for 20.15 percent of their total investment in China, data showed.
That raised accumulated repatriated funds to NT$508.7 billion, data showed.
Total overseas investment gains by listed firms increased 5 percent annually to NT$209.3 billion in the first half, thanks to a 41 percent increase in gains in the second quarter of NT$171.6 billion boosted by an increase in orders for devices used for remote working, Tsai said.
With this year’s Semicon Taiwan trade show set to kick off on Wednesday, market attention has turned to the mass production of advanced packaging technologies and capacity expansion in Taiwan and the US. With traditional scaling reaching physical limits, heterogeneous integration and packaging technologies have emerged as key solutions. Surging demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing (HPC) and high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips has put technologies such as chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS), integrated fan-out (InFO), system on integrated chips (SoIC), 3D IC and fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) at the center of semiconductor innovation, making them a major focus at this year’s trade show, according
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
DEBUT: The trade show is to feature 17 national pavilions, a new high for the event, including from Canada, Costa Rica, Lithuania, Sweden and Vietnam for the first time The Semicon Taiwan trade show, which opens on Wednesday, is expected to see a new high in the number of exhibitors and visitors from around the world, said its organizer, SEMI, which has described the annual event as the “Olympics of the semiconductor industry.” SEMI, which represents companies in the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain, and touts the annual exhibition as the most influential semiconductor trade show in the world, said more than 1,200 enterprises from 56 countries are to showcase their innovations across more than 4,100 booths, and that the event could attract 100,000 visitors. This year’s event features 17
EXPORT GROWTH: The AI boom has shortened chip cycles to just one year, putting pressure on chipmakers to accelerate development and expand packaging capacity Developing a localized supply chain for advanced packaging equipment is critical for keeping pace with customers’ increasingly shrinking time-to-market cycles for new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday. Spurred on by the AI revolution, customers are accelerating product upgrades to nearly every year, compared with the two to three-year development cadence in the past, TSMC vice president of advanced packaging technology and service Jun He (何軍) said at a 3D IC Global Summit organized by SEMI in Taipei. These shortened cycles put heavy pressure on chipmakers, as the entire process — from chip design to mass