Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) yesterday affirmed its twA+ long-term corporate credit rating and twA-1 short-term credit rating for both Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) and Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大), the rating agency said in separate statements.
The outlook on these two companies' long-term ratings is stable, Taiwan Ratings, the local arm of Standard & Poor's Ratings Service, added in the statements.
Taiwan Ratings said the rating for Taiwan Cellular reflects the company's leading position in the nation's mobile telephony market, its good operating margins, stable cash flow and satisfactory financial profile.
Taiwan's wireless telecommunications market has experienced significant consolidation.
In July 2001, Taiwan Cellular acquired southern-based operator Trans Asia Telecommunications (
That figure compares with the 35 percent share that state-owned Chunghwa Telecom Co (
In April 2004, Far EasTone completed the acquisition of KG Telecommunications.
Taiwan Ratings expects the consolidation trend will help Taiwan Cellular maintain its leading market position amid less acute competition in terms of tariff rates and handset subsidies.
However, since the penetration rate in Taiwan's wireless telecommunications market exceeds 100 percent, Taiwan Ratings expects the market growth rate to fall below 10 percent over the next two to three years.
Taiwan Cellular has changed its investment policy as regards its shareholdings in Chunghwa Telecom. Taiwan Cellular, together with TransAsia, sold 122 million shares in Chunghwa Telecom in January, leaving it with a stake of 312.57 million shares in its major competitor.
ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控) yesterday launched its second testing facility in San Jose, California, to expand advanced chip testing capacity such as burn-in testing to satisfy customers’ rising engineering needs for emerging semiconductor applications, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). ISE Labs Inc, a fully owned subsidiary of ASE, would operate the advanced testing facility. When added to its first facility in nearby Fremont, ISE would double its available research-and-development lab and business space to 150,000m2 in hopes of boosting the US semiconductor supply chain, the company said in a statement. “As the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain reshoring
VALUE: TSMC’s market capitalization far exceeds the combined size of all the Latin American companies on MSCI Inc’s benchmark for emerging markets Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) US$420 billion equity rally this year would get a valuation test this week when it reports earnings, with analysts expecting the chipmaker to raise full-year sales forecasts. The world’s biggest contract chipmaker would probably report a 29 percent increase in second-quarter net income on Thursday, according to the median estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. More importantly, analysts from JPMorgan Chase & Co to Morgan Stanley expect it to also raise its full-year sales guidance, justifying another round of valuation expansion. Just like Nvidia Corp, TSMC has become a favorite artificial intelligence (AI)-bet for investors with
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: The previous shooting targeting a US president or major party candidate was the 1981 incident targeting then-US president Ronald Reagan Saturday’s shooting at former US president Donald Trump’s election rally raises his odds of winning back the White House, and trades betting on his victory would increase this coming week, investors said yesterday. Trump was shot in the ear during the rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday in what the authorities were treating as an assassination attempt. Trump, his face spattered with blood, pumped his fist moments after the attack, and his campaign said he was fine after the incident. Before the shooting, markets had reacted to the prospect of a Trump presidency by pushing the US dollar higher and positioning for a
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday thanked memory chipmaker Micron Technology CEO Sanjay Mehrotra for his trust and continued investment in Taiwan, in a rare public meeting with a senior foreign tech executive. It is very unusual for Taiwan’s president to have publicized meetings with senior foreign tech executives, despite the nation being home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), whose chips help to power the surge in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. Lai thanked Mehrotra for “showing trust and support for Taiwan” in a video released by the Presidential Office. “I want to thank Micron for its long-term