China’s microchip industry is feeling the heat of Beijing’s regulatory scrutiny.
A warning in state media on Friday last week that regulators would show no tolerance in cracking down on speculators in the chip market sent related shares lower yesterday.
Shares of China’s biggest chip foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際) dropped 5 percent in Hong Kong, while those of Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體) tumbled 5.7 percent, their worst drop in nearly three months.
Shanghai-listed Will Semiconductor Co (韋爾半導體) shares fell 5.7 percent, while those of Hubei Tech Semiconductors Co (湖北台基半導體) were down 3.3 percent.
For investors, the warning presents another challenge in an increasingly uncertain regulatory landscape, coming soon after the launch of a probe this month into possible price manipulation — chilling a sector buoyed by a global semiconductor shortage.
SMIC has also rallied this year on bets that semiconductor firms would benefit from state largesse, even as Beijing pursues a broader crackdown in the technology sector that has ensnared the likes of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊).
Broadcaster China Central Television in a commentary on Friday last week said that some auto chip distributors have “maliciously” pushed up prices.
It urged sellers to be disciplined and refrain from hoarding components.
A prolonged global chip shortage has driven up prices of chipsets, complicating China’s bid to gain clout in advanced components used in devices from smartphones to base stations.
Chinese automakers, for example, import about 90 percent of the high-end chips they require.
Traders have been cautiously looking for signs as to what other sectors could next be targeted by Beijing after a ban on profits for after-school tutoring firms triggered a sell-off last month, amid concerns over further crackdowns in digital gaming, e-cigarettes and property.
Separately, China’s cyberspace watchdog yesterday said that authorities have arrested 59 people and seized 25,000 illegally controlled webcams in a crackdown on illegal camera voyeurism.
The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement that it and other government agencies, including the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and the State Administration of Market Regulation, have been stepping up efforts to crack down on voyeuristic behavior, including “trading private videos.”
Online content platforms including Baidu Inc (百度), Tencent and Alibaba’s UC Browser have “cleaned up” more than 8,000 pieces of illegal voyeuristic information and punished 134 illegal accounts, the CAC said.
E-commerce platforms such as JD.com Inc (京東), Alibaba’s Taobao (淘寶) and Xianyu (閒魚) took offline a total of 1,600 cameras that had been advertised or sold illegally, it said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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