EQUITIES
TAIEX edges higher
The TAIEX closed slightly higher yesterday as large-cap technology stocks sustained strength to offset losses suffered by their old-economy counterparts, such as so-called “military concept stocks” and firms in the electric engineering industry. However, sentiment remained cautious throughout the session as investors were concerned about a potential US debt default and the impending release of US consumer price index data today. The TAIEX closed up 28.13 points, or 0.18 percent, at 15,727.70. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$210.376 billion (US$6.85 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$4.12 billion of shares, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
AIRLINES
EVA profit up 34 percent
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) yesterday posted a net profit of NT$4.498 billion for the first quarter of the year, up 34 percent year-on-year on the back of a surge in passenger revenue. Earnings per share were NT$0.84 in the first quarter, compared with NT$0.64 a year earlier. Consolidated sales in the first three months of the year grew 47.6 percent to NT$44.43 billion, with passenger revenue jumping 1,739.6 percent to NT$27.75 billion, while cargo revenue decreased 59 percent to NT$10.45 billion, EVA said. The company attributed the surge in passenger revenue to a 3,424 percent increase in passenger volume and higher ticket prices. A 28.4 percent drop in cargo volume was the main reason behind the decrease in cargo revenue in the quarter, it added.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai buys land in India
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) has bought a huge tract of land on the outskirts of Indian technology hub Bengaluru, the key Apple Inc supplier said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Monday as it looks to diversify production away from China. Hon Hai, known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said its subsidiary Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development Pvt Ltd was paying 3 billion rupees (US$36.6 million) for a 1.2 million square meter site in Devanahalli, near the local airport, the filing said. Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj S. Bommai in March said that Apple would “soon” manufacture iPhones at a new plant in the state, creating “about 100,000 jobs.” Meanwhile, another Foxconn unit, Fu Wing Interconnect Technology (Nghe An) Co Ltd, has acquired land use rights to a 480,000m2 site in Vietnam’s Nghe An Province, a separate filing said.
CHIPMAKERS
TSMC executives paid more
Executives at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) received more annual pay last year on the back of the contract chipmaker’s strong business performance, according to a report released to TSMC shareholders ahead of the chipmaker’s annual general meeting on June 6. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was paid NT$632 million last year, up NT$231 million or 57.87 percent from a year earlier, while chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) received NT$643 million, up NT$243 million or 60.72 percent from a year earlier. TSMC’s net profit totaled NT$1.01 trillion last year, up 70.4 percent from a year earlier. Liu’s pay accounted for 0.0622 percent of TSMC’s total net profit for last year, while Wei’s salary was equivalent to 0.0633 percent of total net profit.
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
GREAT SUCCESS: Republican Senator Todd Young expressed surprise at Trump’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running US lawmakers who helped secure billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to revoke the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, signaling that any repeal effort in the US Congress would fall short. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who negotiated the law, on Wednesday said that Trump’s demand would fail, while a top Republican proponent, US Senator Todd Young, expressed surprise at the president’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running. The CHIPS Act is “essential for America leading the world in tech, leading the world in AI [artificial
REACTIONS: While most analysts were positive about TSMC’s investment, one said the US expansion could disrupt the company’s supply-demand balance Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) new US$100 billion investment in the US would exert a positive effect on the chipmaker’s revenue in the medium term on the back of booming artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from US chip designers, an International Data Corp (IDC) analyst said yesterday. “This is good for TSMC in terms of business expansion, as its major clients for advanced chips are US chip designers,” IDC senior semiconductor research manager Galen Zeng (曾冠瑋) said by telephone yesterday. “Besides, those US companies all consider supply chain resilience a business imperative,” Zeng said. That meant local supply would
Servers that might contain artificial intelligence (AI)-powering Nvidia Corp chips shipped from the US to Singapore ended up in Malaysia, but their actual final destination remains a mystery, Singaporean Minister for Home Affairs and Law K Shanmugam said yesterday. The US is cracking down on exports of advanced semiconductors to China, seeking to retain a competitive edge over the technology. However, Bloomberg News reported in late January that US officials were probing whether Chinese AI firm DeepSeek (深度求索) bought advanced Nvidia semiconductors through third parties in Singapore, skirting Washington’s restrictions. Shanmugam said the route of the chips emerged in the course of an