INVESTMENT
Foreigners net sellers
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$18.39 billion (US$573.2 million) of local shares after selling a net NT$10.39 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$1.36 trillion of local shares since the beginning of the year, it said. The top three shares sold by foreign investors last week were Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) and E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), while the top three shares bought by foreign investors were Innolux Corp (群創), SinoPac Holdings Co (永豐金控) and Career Technology Co (嘉聯益). As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$15.61 trillion, or 38.44 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
Zhen Ding revenue up 29%
Zhen Ding Technology Holding Ltd (臻鼎), the nation’s leading printed circuit board (PCB) supplier, yesterday posted revenue of NT$21.19 billion for last month, up 29.86 percent year-on-year and the highest monthly sales in the company’s history, thanks to handset launches by a major customer. It brought the company’s cumulative revenue in the first 10 months of this year to NT$139.64 billion, up 21.54 percent year-on-year, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) yesterday forecast Zhen Ding’s PCB shipments for handsets and laptops to be higher this quarter than last quarter, adding that its handset PCB shipments for a major US brand would peak this month, after which shipments would fall sequentially. Average selling prices of the company’s products are predicted to drop by 2 to 5 percent this quarter from last quarter after the peak of mass production ends, Yuanta said.
INVESTMENT
Program supports SMEs
The Executive Yuan has approved a program worth billions of New Taiwan dollars designed to improve the competitiveness of Taiwan’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a focus on four key areas, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said on Thursday after the weekly Cabinet meeting. The NT$95 billion program, which runs from this year through 2026, would receive funding from government agencies, Lo said. It also seeks to foster world-class businesses by improving the competitiveness of SMEs in the areas of zero emissions, digital transformation, value-added innovation and co-prosperity, he added.
INSURANCE
Regulator approves funds
Taiwan’s non-life insurance companies are expected to raise nearly NT$100 billion in total capital by the end of the year as COVID-19 insurance claims continue to rise and some insurers are planning to conduct more capital injection to improve their financial state, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Thursday. Six non-life insurers — Cathay Century Insurance Co (國泰世紀產險), CTBC Insurance Co (中國信託產險), Fubon Insurance Co (富邦產險), Tokio Marine Newa Insurance Co (新安東京海上產險), Hotai Insurance Co (和泰產險) and Chung Kuo Insurance Co (兆豐產險) — have obtained regulatory approval to raise combined capital of NT$70.7 billion, the commission said. Cathay Century Insurance and Tokio Marine Newa Insurance are planning to conduct second capital increases of NT$10 billion and of NT$7.5 billion respectively, the commission 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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