At the end of last year, the nation’s 15 financial conglomerates saw their combined foreign exposure rise 2.1 percent to NT$20.89 trillion (US$738.79 billion at the current exchange rate) from NT$20.46 trillion in the third quarter, as they increased overseas equity investments amid bull markets, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) data showed.
Exposure — lending and investment — is a gauge of the firms’ financial risk, the commission said.
Overseas investment for the firms expanded 3.11 percent quarterly to NT$16.21 trillion in the fourth quarter of last year, while their unrealized gains stood at NT$284 billion, up 51 percent from a quarter earlier, FSC data showed.
The firms’ investment in the US, the largest market in terms of overseas investment, grew by NT$183 billion quarter-on-quarter to NT$5.75 trillion — the largest increase among all markets — while their unrealized gains jumped 42.5 percent to NT$145 billion, which could be attributed to US stock markets’ booming fourth quarter, the data showed.
The firms increased their investment in China by NT$142 billion to NT$1.59 trillion, the second-largest rise, while their unrealized losses improved from NT$9.2 billion in the third quarter to NT$1 billion at the end of last year, the data showed.
On a quarterly basis, their investment in South Korea increased by NT$76 billion, while investment in Australia grew by NT$35 billion and in Japan by NT$18 billion, the data showed.
Despite the political unrest in Hong Kong, the conglomerates boosted their investment in the financial hub by NT$10 billion to NT$324 billion, the data showed.
By comparison, the firms’ combined lending in overseas markets fell NT$105 billion quarterly, or 2.8 percent, to NT$3.39 trillion, which could be attributed to cautiousness on the part of their banking units after many of them had seen loans turn sour in markets such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
Among the top 10 markets — the US, China, the UK, Hong Kong, France, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Canada and the United Arab Emirates — lending by the firms fell in all 10, except for Australia, Canada and South Korea, the data showed.
China remained the firms’ largest lending market, with combined lending of NT$637 billion, down 4.5 percent from the third quarter, while lending in Hong Kong, the No. 2 market, fell 2.2 percent to NT$530 billion, the data showed.
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along
FORECAST: The greater computing power needed for emerging AI applications has driven higher demand for advanced semiconductors worldwide, TSMC said The government-supported Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has raised its forecast for this year’s growth in the output value of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to above 22 percent on strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. In its latest IEK Current Quarterly Model report, the institute said the local semiconductor industry would have output of NT$6.5 trillion (US$216.6 billion) this year, up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, an upward revision from a 19.1 percent increase estimate made in May. The strong showing of the local semiconductor industry largely reflected the stronger-than-expected performance of the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing segment,
NVIDIA FACTOR: Shipments of AI servers powered by GB300 chips would undergo pilot runs this quarter, with small shipments possibly starting next quarter, it said Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), which supplies artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp chips, yesterday said that AI servers are on track to account for 70 percent of its total server revenue this year, thanks to improved yield rates and a better learning curve for Nvidia’s GB300 chip-based servers. AI servers accounted for more than 60 percent of its total server revenue in the first half of this year, Quanta chief financial officer Elton Yang (楊俊烈) told an online conference. The company’s latest production learning curve of the AI servers powered by Nvidia’s GB200 chips has improved after overcoming key component
RSS