TECHNOLOGY
King Yuan sales rise 2.42%
IC testing service provider King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電) yesterday reported revenue of NT$3.27 billion (US$118.3 million) for last month, up 2.42 percent month-on-month and 38.07 percent year-on-year. Revenue last quarter increased 6 percent to NT$9.53 billion — a record for the fourth quarter — as the company benefited from increased demand for chips used in 5G, artificial intelligence and high-performance computing applications. King Yuan’s revenue for the whole of last year rose 16.58 percent to NT$33.76 billion from 2020, also a company record.
CERTIFICATION
Sporton revenue hits record
Sporton International Inc (耕興), which provides professional product testing and certification services, yesterday reported that its revenue last month increased 17.75 percent month-on-month and 30.53 percent year-on-year to a record NT$412.27 million. Sporton said that it attributed the increase to robust demand in Taiwan and the US, as the markets continue to migrate to 5G technology. Revenue in the fourth quarter rose 18.11 percent to NT$1.11 billion from a year earlier, while revenue for the whole of last year reached NT$4.32 billion, up 22.94 percent from 2020, it said.
AIRLINES
CAL announces pay hike
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday said that it would give employees an annual bonus equal to six months’ wages and offer a 4 percent pay increase this year. CAL, the only Taiwanese carrier that made a profit in the first three quarters of last year, posted a net profit of nearly NT$1.56 billion. In the first 11 months of last year, its revenue increased 15.99 percent annually to NT$121.94 billion. The company is expected to continue benefiting from elevated cargo demand and robust air freight rates this year, Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) said in October, after raising its outlook for the airline from “negative” to “stable.”
STEELMAKERS
Yieh Hsing to expand plant
Steelmaker Yieh Hsing Enterprise Co (燁興企業) yesterday said it would invest NT$1.272 billion to expand its plant at the Ping Nan Industrial Park (屏南工業區) in Pingtung County. The capacity of the plant, which supplies steel wires and stainless steel pipes, is expected to expand to 450,000 tonnes per year from 300,000 tonnes, Yieh Hsing said, adding that it plans to complete the expansion in two years. The money would also be used to upgrade facilities and install solar panels as the company seeks to improve the competitiveness of its product line, and comply with policies on energy savings and the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, it said in a regulatory filing.
UNITED STATES
Greenback ‘to get stronger’
The US dollar is expected to become stronger in the first half of the year, but face downward pressure in the second half, as capital might leave the US if its fiscal and account deficits persist while economies elsewhere recover, Standard Chartered Bank (Taiwan) Ltd (渣打國際商業銀行) said on Wednesday. Investors are advised to hold gold positions to hedge against volatility, as Standard Chartered believes virtual assets such as bitcoin are less effective at hedging against volatility, Standard Chartered investment strategy head Allen Liu (劉家豪) said. Cryptocurrencies are more like a special investment, which can hardly replace gold, he said.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
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