The combined pretax profit of 940 Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE)-listed firms soared 92.8 percent in the first nine months of this year from the same period last year to NT$3.17 trillion (US$113.97 billion) amid an ongoing economic recovery, the exchange said on Tuesday.
The 940 companies include 77 foreign firms that have launched primary listings on the local main board, but exclude 14 Taiwanese financial holding firms, the exchange said.
The profit increase was partly due to strong global demand for tech gadgets, such as 5G applications, high-performance computing devices and automotive electronics as the COVID-19 pandemic prompted accelerated development of the digital economy worldwide, it said.
Photo: Bloomberg
The semiconductor industry was the top beneficiary, it said.
The shipping industry got a boost from rising freight rates in the wake of port congestion worldwide, while profitability in the plastics industry improved due to a spike in international crude oil prices, the TWSE said.
In the first nine months of this year, the 940 companies generated NT$25.85 trillion in consolidated sales, up 19.92 percent from a year earlier, it said.
Meanwhile, the Taipei Exchange (TPEx), which runs the local over-the-counter market, said that 790 companies it lists raked in a combined NT$236.7 billion in pretax profit for the nine-month period, up 43 percent from a year earlier.
Of the 790 firms, 516 reported growth in pretax profit, with the semiconductor, electronics component and steel industries leading the upturn, the TPEx said.
The 790 firms collectively posted NT$1.93 trillion in consolidated sales for the period, up 18 percent from a year earlier, it said.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
RSS