EQUITIES
TAIEX hits new intraday high
The TAIEX closed almost flat yesterday, dropping from a record intraday high, as selling began after the main board at one point breached 18,000 points. After the market’s rally in the previous session, investors seemed worried about a possible technical pullback, and scrambled to lock in their early gains, dealers said. The TAIEX closed down 6.26 points, or 0.03 percent, at 17,913.07. Turnover totaled NT$600.005 billion (US$21.49 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$119 million of shares on the main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
CHIPMAKERS
Novatek revenue hits record
Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠) yesterday reported record revenue of NT$11.58 billion for last month, doubling from NT$5.85 billion a year earlier. That brought its second-quarter revenue to NT$34.11 billion, up 29.4 percent from NT$26.36 billion in the first quarter. Last quarter’s revenue also exceeded the driver IC supplier’s estimate of between NT$33 billion and NT$34 billion on robust demand for laptops and TVs.
ELECTRONICS
Sercomm revenue up 15%
Telecom equipment maker Sercomm Corp (中磊) yesterday posted NT$3.59 billion in revenue for last month, up 15 percent from NT$3.13 billion a year earlier. That brought the company’s second-quarter revenue to a record NT$9.99 billion, up 8 percent from NT$9.25 billion a year earlier. Sercomm attributed the growth to upgrades of broadband infrastructure, fiber optical gateways, Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications cables and enterprise networking equipment.
? NETWORKING
Virus hits Accton revenue
Networking equipment maker Accton Technology Corp (智邦科技) yesterday said its revenue fell 7.94 percent year-on-year last month to NT$4.52 billion due to a production disruption at its factory in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南) after workers were quarantined for COVID-19. Production at the factory was restored at the end of last month, it said. In the second quarter, revenue rose 11.33 percent year-on-year to NT$14.05 billion from NT$12.62 billion.
AUTOMAKERS
New vehicle sales dive
Taiwan’s new vehicle sales plunged 32.5 percent from a year earlier and 18.8 percent from a month earlier to 27,930 units last month, the lowest in 12 years, after a COVID-19 outbreak dampened consumer sentiment, data compiled by local transportation authorities showed. However, vehicle sales for the first six months of this year were up 5.7 percent annually, totaling 221,809 units, data released on Friday last week showed. Last month, Toyota Motor Corp was the top seller with sales of 6,329 units, down 47.1 percent from a year earlier, and took a 22.7 percent share of the local market.
BANKING
DBS Taiwan names chair
DBS Bank Taiwan’s (星展台灣) board of directors on Monday approved Andrew Ng (伍維洪) as its new chairman. Ng is the Singapore-based bank’s head of Treasury and Markets, and a member of the DBS Group Executive Committee, DBS Bank said on Monday. He has been instrumental in leading DBS Treasury and Market’s expansion in the region since 2016, helping build a pan-Asia trading platform on different asset classes and establishing region-wide local currency derivative capabilities for the bank, it said.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
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