EQUITIES
US rally spurs investors
Shares in Taiwan yesterday staged a rebound as investors were encouraged by an overnight rally in semiconductor stocks on US markets and focused on the bellwether electronics sector, dealers said. Buying also extended to old economy stocks, especially in the shipping and commodities sectors, as China began easing COVID-19 lockdowns in major cities, leading to hopes of improved demand, they said. The TAIEX closed up 94.53 points, or 0.56 percent, to 16,993.40. Turnover totaled NT$226.694 billion (US$7.76 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$2.13 billion of shares after a net sell of NT$19.41 billion on Monday. The electronics sector rose 0.55 percent and the semiconductor sub-index closed 0.61 percent higher, while paper stocks rose 1.12 percent and the transportation sector rose 2.65 percent.
SEMICONDUCTORS
TSMC plans staff subsidy
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is planning to provide subsidies to employees who purchase its shares, the company said yesterday. To attract and retain staff, TSMC is set to launch the share purchase subsidy scheme for its 50,000 employees later this year, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday. This is the first time that TSMC has decided to subsidize employees buying its shares, the report said. Under the scheme expected to take effect in July, TSMC employees can have an amount deducted from their monthly salary to buy the company’s shares, while the company would offer subsidies of up to 15 percent to employees for those purchases, the report said. TSMC said that discussions about the subsidy program were under way and that details such as the subsidy rate would be determined during the company’s board meeting next month.
ELECTRONICS
Wiwynn plans NT$25 divined
Cloud computing equipment supplier Wiwynn Corp’s (緯穎科技) board of directors has proposed distributing a cash dividend of NT$25 per share, representing a payout ratio of 50.5 percent based on its earnings per share of NT$49.46 for last year, the company said on Monday. Wiwynn, a subsidiary of contract electronics maker Wistron Corp (緯創), reported record net profit of NT$8.65 billion for last year, up 0.5 percent from 2020, as consolidated revenue increased 3 percent to NT$192.63 billion, the highest in the company’s history. Wiwynn supplies cloud-based servers and solutions to global data center operators such as Microsoft Corp, Facebook Inc and Amazon.com Inc. Due to steady growth in shipments to clients, revenue in the first quarter increased 29.07 percent year-on-year to NT$50.71 billion, the highest on record for the January-to-March period, the company said.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai ‘well’ in China
The world’s biggest iPhone assembly campus, on the outskirts of the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, is operating normally despite lockdowns and mass COVID-19 testing that began in the area last week, the Henan Daily reported. Operated by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), the sprawling assembly site’s importance to Apple Inc’s smartphone supply chain has earned the locality the nickname of iPhone City. “Production at the Foxconn campus is proceeding well with some 200,000 workers,” the newspaper said, citing Foxconn managers within the compound. “The supply lines haven’t been affected by COVID.”
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
HSBC Holdings PLC is deepening its commitment to Taiwan as the economy emerges as one of the bank’s fastest-growing markets globally, driven by an artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom, expanding cross-border trade, and rising wealth creation. “The advantage that Taiwan has is a growth story linked to the semiconductor and broader AI industries, strong underlying corporate performance, and wealth creation,” said Surendra Rosha, HSBC’s co-chief executive for Asia and the Middle East, in an exclusive interview with the Taipei Times on June 2, during this year’s HSBC Taiwan Conference. That combination has helped HSBC cement its position as the most profitable international
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
RSS