EQUITIES
TAIEX closes slightly lower
The TAIEX yesterday closed slightly lower as government-led funds were believed to have intervened to support the local main board amid ongoing global volatility. Despite the aid, contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) fell below NT$400 for the first time in more than two years as the local tech sector remained affected by the US Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate hike cycle and Washington’s new ban on certain chip exports to China. The TAIEX was down 24.79 points, or 0.19 percent, at 13,081.24, as the electronics sector was up by 0.29 percent and the semiconductor sub-index fell by 0.82 percent. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$181.556 billion (US$5.7 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$16.64 billion of shares, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
LOGISTICS
Dimerco to buy back shares
Freight forwarder Dimerco Express Corp (中菲行) yesterday said it plans to launch a share buyback program for the first time in the company’s history to protect shareholders’ interests. The company is to repurchase 3 million common shares for NT$317 million at the most, it said in a regulatory filing after its board of directors approved the proposal. Dimerco proposes to repurchase shares at NT$45.3 to NT$104.3 per share, the filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed. It is to buy back shares over the next two months, beginning tomorrow and ending on Dec. 13, it added. The company posted revenue of NT$3.08 billion last month, down 10.34 percent month-on-month and 19.8 percent year-on-year, due to falling demand. The company’s shares closed 2.73 percent lower at NT$60.50, down 62 percent from a high of NT$160 in June last year, exchange data showed.
ELECTRONICS
MediaTek posts record sales
Smartphone IC designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Tuesday recorded its second-highest monthly sales for last month, with analysts attributing the performance to phone launches by customers. The company posted NT$56.57 billion in consolidated sales, up 26.56 percent from a month earlier and 18.09 percent from a year earlier, trailing only March’s NT$59.18 billion. Consolidated sales totaled NT$142.16 billion in the third quarter, within the company’s forecast range of NT$141.7 billion to NT$154.2 billion. However, third-quarter revenues fell 8.71 percent compared with the second quarter due to some customers adjusting their inventories. In the first nine months, consolidated sales totaled NT$440.6 billion, up 20.79 percent from a year earlier, MediaTek said, adding that it expects full-year sales to grow 17 to 19 percent this year from last year, a downgrade from its previous estimate of a 20 percent annual increase due to inventory adjustments among its clients.
ELECTRONICS
Pixel 7 launches today
Google’s newest smartphones — the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro — and its first smart watch, the Pixel Watch, are to go on sale in Taiwan today, Google Taiwan vice president of hardware Elmer Peng (彭昱鈞) said last week. Peng said the addition of the Pixel Watch to the line of smartphones and Pixel Buds earphones has created a more comprehensive product portfolio. Prices for the 6.3-inch Pixel 7, 6.7-inch Pixel 7 Pro and Pixel Watch are to start from NT$18,990, NT$26,990 and NT$10,990 respectively, Google said.
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
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
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
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