The local finance sector reported combined pretax profit of NT$675.7 billion (US$23.77 billion) last year, up 6.5 percent from a year earlier, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday, attributing the record-high to life insurers’ investment gains and securities firms’ fee incomes.
Life insurers reported combined pretax profit of NT$206.1 billion, up 33.2 percent year-on-year, on the back of investment gains of NT$83 billion in global stocks markets, commission data showed.
Meanwhile, life insurers recorded NT$296.8 billion in foreign-exchange losses and hedging expenses last year, up 1.92 percent from a year earlier, due to the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation against the US dollar, the commission said.
The NT dollar rose 5.6 percent against the greenback last year.
About two-thirds of life insurers’ investment portfolios, totaling more than NT$18 trillion, are overseas investments or denominated in US dollars, it said.
The life insurance industry posted combined losses of NT$581 billion in the valuation of their US dollar-denominated assets as of the end of last month, which was partly offset by gains of NT$436 billion in the valuation of their hedging tools denominated in NT dollar or other Asian currencies, the commission said.
Hedging expenses totaled NT$160 billion last year, it said.
Property insurers’ combined pretax profit grew 6.3 percent annually to NT$17 billion, the data showed.
Last year, securities companies reported combined pretax profit grew 51 percent year-on-year to NT$65.8 billion, futures companies’ pretax profit expanded 17 percent to NT$5 billion and securities investment trust firms’ pretax profit increased 20 percent to NT$10.9 billion, all hitting the highest in nine years, the commission said.
However, banks’ profits fell last year, as their combined pretax profit decreased 13 percent to NT$312.7 billion due to declining interest income, foreign exchange losses and lower investment gains, it said.
Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光), a subsidiary of US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc, has been granted a NT$4.7 billion (US$149.5 million) subsidy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs A+ Corporate Innovation and R&D Enhancement program, the ministry said yesterday. The US memorychip maker’s program aims to back the development of high-performance and high-bandwidth memory chips with a total budget of NT$11.75 billion, the ministry said. Aside from the government funding, Micron is to inject the remaining investment of NT$7.06 billion as the company applied to participate the government’s Global Innovation Partnership Program to deepen technology cooperation, a ministry official told the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s leading advanced chipmaker, officially began volume production of its 2-nanometer chips in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a recent update on the company’s Web site. The low-key announcement confirms that TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware providers Nvidia Corp and iPhone maker Apple Inc, met its original roadmap for the next-generation technology. Production is currently centered at Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, utilizing the company’s first-generation nanosheet transistor technology. The new architecture achieves “full-node strides in performance and power consumption,” TSMC said. The company described the 2nm process as
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
POTENTIAL demand: Tesla’s chance of reclaiming its leadership in EVs seems uncertain, but breakthrough in full self-driving could help boost sales, an analyst said Chinese auto giant BYD Co (比亞迪) is poised to surpass Tesla Inc as the world’s biggest electric vehicle (EV) company in annual sales. The two groups are expected to soon publish their final figures for this year, and based on sales data so far this year, there is almost no chance the US company led by CEO Elon Musk would retain its leadership position. As of the end of last month, BYD, which also produces hybrid vehicles, had sold 2.07 million EVs. Tesla, for its part, had sold 1.22 million by the end of September. Tesla’s September figures included a one-time boost in
RSS