EQUITIES
TAIEX rises on electronics
Taiwanese shares yesterday closed moderately higher after consolidating throughout the session following a mixed performance on US markets, dealers said. While old economy and financial stocks came under pressure as investors took profit, the bellwether electronics sector appeared resilient, lending support to the broader market, they said. The TAIEX ended up 50.48 points, or 0.29 percent, at the day’s high of 17,553.76. Turnover was NT$384.169 billion (US$13.8 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$939 million of shares on the main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
SOCIETY
Twelve win NT$10m each
Twelve people won a special prize of NT$10 million each in the May-June receipt lottery, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Among the 12, four spent between NT$65 and NT$300 at 7-Eleven stores, while two made purchases at a FamilyMart (全家) convenience store and a Pxmart (全聯) surpermarket. There were also 12 winners of the grand prize of NT$2 million each, the ministry. Meanwhile, four NT$10 million winning receipts for the March-April lottery remain unclaimed, the ministry said, urging the winners to claim the money before the Sept. 6 deadline.
ELECTRONICS
Nan Ya PCB profit up 47%
Nan Ya Printed Circuit Board Corp (Nan Ya PCB, 南亞電路板) yesterday reported a second-quarter net profit of NT$2.33 billion, up 47 percent from the first quarter. Earnings per share were NT$3.61, compared with the previous quarter’s NT$2.45. Revenue grew 15 percent sequentially to a record NT$12.49 billion. Gross and operating margins also hit their highest since 2008 at 26.99 percent and 23.03 percent respectively, the company said in a regulatory filing. In the first half of the year, net profit totaled NT$3.91 billion, up 201 percent from a year earlier, with earnings per share of NT$6.06, the filing said.
AUTOMAKERS
CMC profit jumps 66.4%
China Motor Corp (CMC, 中華汽車), which distributes Mitsubishi sedans and its own CMC commercial vehicles, yesterday said its board of directors signed off on the company’s financial statement for the first half of the year, which showed that net profit grew 66.4 percent year-on-year to NT$2.66 billion, with earnings per share reaching a record NT$4.65. Revenue also increased 9.6 percent from a year earlier to NT$16.195 billion over the period, the company said, attributing the increase to higher auto sales domestically. CMC said it has set a domestic sales target of 50,000 vehicles for this year, as domestic consumption is expected to recover steadily in the second half of the year.
BANKING
Bank’s Miaoli unit approved
The Financial Supervisory Commission has approved Taichung Commercial Bank’s (台中商銀) application to set up a branch in Miaoli County. “Local banks have become more conservative about setting up branches, as they have redirected their focus to digital banking services that can address customers’ needs better than conventional branches amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” Banking Bureau Chief Secretary Phil Tong (童政彰) said last week. Instead of establishing new branches, banks have concentrated more on upgrading their existing branches and rebuilding them as flagship branches to accommodate high net worth clients, Tong said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained