STEEL
CSC profit drops 13 percent
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday posted NT$2.5 billion (US$79.79 million) in pre-tax profit for last month, a 13 percent decline from November last year. China Steel’s pre-tax profits in November amounted to NT$26.08 billion. Last year, the Kaohsiung-based steelmaker made NT$28.58 billion in pre-tax profit, according to a company statement. For all of last year, revenue rose 5.37 percent to NT$366.51 billion, compared with NT$347.83 billion in 2013. Last year, China Steel shipped 9.68 million tonnes of carbon steel, up 2.11 percent from 9.48 million tonnes in 2013.
INVESTMENT
ShunSin share price rockets
ShunSin Technology Holdings Ltd (訊芯) shares yesterday jumped 45.45 percent to NT$160 from its initial public offering price of NT$110. ShunSin makes system-in-package modules used primarily in mobile phones, such as Apple Inc’s iPhone. ShunSin, 71 percent owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), generates more than 80 percent of its revenue from system-in-package modules, primarily for handset power amplifiers. The company, which counts the world’s top five power amplifier suppliers as its clients, shipped 800 million units last year and accounted for 22.21 percent of the global power amplifier market. The company made NT$571 million, or NT$6.33 per share, in the first three quarters of last year.
SEMICONDUCTORS
MediaTek chip gets approval
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s leading fabless semiconductor company, announced on Sunday that its MT6975 smartphone chip has received certification in record time by China Mobile Ltd (中國移動). According to sources close to the industry, the Taiwanese chipmaker received certification by the world’s largest mobile phone operator, as measured by subscribers, in three weeks, significantly faster than the average of one to two months. Meanwhile, the new flagship chip to be offered by rival Qualcomm Inc, the Snapdragon 810, is mired in production delays due to overheating, according to rumors, and not expected to hit the market until the end of the first or second quarter this year. Industry commentators said that MediaTek is expected to benefit from its lead in the race to reach markets, as smartphone manufacturers choose its chip over Qualcomm’s offering. The markets are expecting MediaTek’s MT6795 to begin mass production in the first quarter of this year, with devices equipped with the chip to go on sale shortly afterwards.
SOLAR POWER
Students take second place
A solar car team from National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences won a prize for innovation at the 2015 Abu Dhabi Solar Challenge, despite coming under political pressure from China. The school’s Apollo VI Solar Car Team took the Shell Innovation Award’s second prize in the cross-country road competition that took place in the middle of this month, starting and finishing in Abu Dhabi. The first prize for innovation went to university teams from the United Arab Emirates and the US. Team leader Herchang Ay (艾和昌) said the race had an extremely high degree of difficulty, requiring the solar-powered Apollo and its competitors to navigate a 1,200km road that twisted through deserts. The Abu Dhabi Solar Challenge, the first event of its kind held in the Middle East, coincided with Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. It attracted 15 solar car teams.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the