EQUITIES
Fears send TAIEX plunging
The TAIEX took a beating yesterday, tumbling almost 300 points, as market sentiment was roiled by fears of potential rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and over military tensions between Russia and Ukraine. The bellwether electronics sector came under heavy downward pressure, falling 1.61 percent, with the semiconductor subindex down 1.75 percent, led by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). The TAIEX closed down 287.92 points, or 1.60 percent, at 17,701.12. Turnover totaled NT$269.410 billion (US$9.72 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$47.35 billion of shares on the main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. TSMC lost 1.84 percent to close at NT$641, and its losses contributed about 100 points to the TAIEX’s decline.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Powerchip outlook upbeat
Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) yesterday said it is optimistic about its operations this year. It expects annual revenue to increase 21.9 percent to more than NT$80 billion on the back of rising average selling prices, while net profit is forecast to grow 24.3 percent to more than NT$20 billion. Last year’s operating performance was in line with expectations, with revenue of NT$65.62 billion, gross margin of 42 percent and net profit of NT$16.09 billion, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told an online investors’ conference. That translated into earnings per share of NT$4.92, Huang said. At present, 70 to 80 percent of the company’s memory and logic production capacity has been booked by customers, he said. Product prices would not rise as much as last year, with average selling prices likely to increase by 5 to 10 percent, Huang said.
MANUFACTURING
Wah Lee buys 13 plots
Wah Lee Industrial Corp (華立), a supplier of industrial materials and equipment, yesterday said it has purchased several plots of land in Tainan, as it plans to set up a southern logistics center there. The company said in a regulatory filing that it has acquired 13 plots for about NT$1.2 billion. Wah Lee said its board of directors had authorized the firm’s chairman to handle price negotiations, payment terms and the signing of contracts for the purchase. As the company cannot register farming and grazing land under its name, it has temporarily registered the land under Wah Lee chief executive officer Gary Chang’s (張尊賢) name, it said, adding that it has taken all necessary precautionary measures to protect the rights of the company.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Hon Hai to redraw prizes
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that some of its employees were not able to join prize draws during an annual online event on Sunday due to a system malfunction. To protect the rights and interests of the affected employees, the company would redraw prizes for them, with the original prize winners remaining unchanged, Hon Hai said in a statement. Local media reported yesterday that some of Hon Hai’s employees were excluded from the prize draws, which included vehicles and cash, due to problems importing the lottery list into the company’s lottery system. Hon Hai said that it provided employees who did not win any prize draws with a participation award of NT$16,888 each.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
RSS