EQUITIES
Foreign selling spikes
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$83.02 billion (US$2.86 billion) of local shares after selling a net NT$7.2 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$552.81 billion of local shares from the beginning of the year, it said. Last week, the top three shares foreign investors sold were United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Innolux Corp (群創) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), while the top three shares they bought were CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控), EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) and China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控), the exchange said. As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$21.97 trillion, or 41 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
COMPUTERS
Ennoconn hits record sales
Industrial computer maker Ennoconn Corp (樺漢科技) yesterday reported that sales for last month were a record for March, bringing cumulative sales in the first quarter to a record high, despite headwinds such as the Russia-Ukraine war and raw material shortages. Consolidated revenue increased 41.4 percent month-on-month and 15.7 percent year-on-year to NT$9.56 billion, the company said in a statement. First-quarter revenue was up 20 percent annually to NT$24.22 billion. Ennoconn said the growth was across the board for its three major business units: with the design and manufacturing segment contributing 18.2 percent to the company’s total revenue, systems integration 40 percent and brand business 41 percent, it said.
E-COMMERCE
Momo sales rise 23.3%
E-commerce operator Momo.com Inc (富邦媒體) yesterday reported consolidated revenue of NT$7.53 billion for last month, up 23.3 percent from a year earlier and hitting a record for March. The online shopping business, which has benefited from a changing consumer pattern amid the COVID-19 pandemic, saw sales increase 25.5 percent on the back of robust demand for health and leisure products, cosmetics and household goods, the company said in a statement. In addition, sales of scooters and motorbikes surged during the back-to-school season, it said. Online shopping contributed 94.8 percent to last month’s total revenue, the company said. First-quarter revenue totaled NT$22.94 billion, up 24.9 percent from a year earlier and the second-highest quarterly revenue on record, it said.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai ups EV investment
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) has poured more funds into an electric vehicle (EV) subsidiary, as it continues to explore business opportunities in this market. In a regulatory filing on Friday, Hon Hai said it has invested an additional US$39 million in Foxconn EV Technology Inc, taking about a 17 percent stake in the subsidiary. The new investments would allow Hon Hai to control a 100 percent stake in Foxconn EV Technology, which has served as a major investor, signing an agreement with Ohio-based pickup maker Lordstown Motors Corp to develop the Endurance electric pickup model. Separately, Hon Hai said its Longhua production site in Shenzhen in China’s Guangdong Province has obtained UL 2799 “Gold Level Certification” for its “Zero Waste to Landfill” efforts, making the complex “the world’s first comprehensive eco-park.”
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
NVIDIA PLATFORM: Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and a Taiwan site is to enter production next month, Nvidia wrote on its blog Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, yesterday said it is expanding production capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) servers based on Nvidia Corp’s Blackwell chips in Taiwan, the US and Mexico to cope with rising demand. Hon Hai’s new AI-enabled factories are to use Nvidia’s Omnivores platform to create 3D digital twins to plan and simulate automated production lines at a factory in Hsinchu, the company said in a statement. Nvidia’s Omnivores platform is for developing industrial AI simulation applications and helps bring facilities online faster. Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and the
AVIATION BOOM: CAL is to renew its passenger and cargo fleets starting next year on record profits as aviation continues to return to pre-pandemic levels China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) yesterday said it is optimistic about next year’s business outlook, as the airline continues to renew its fleet on expectations that global passenger traffic would maintain steady growth and air cargo demand would remain strong. From next year to 2028, the airline is to welcome a new Boeing Co 787 fleet — 18 787-9 and six 787-10 passenger aircraft — to cover regional and medium to long-haul destinations, CAL chairman Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) said at an investors’ conference in Taipei. The airline would also continue to introduce Airbus SE 321neo passenger planes and Boeing 777F cargo jets,
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
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