Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)(TPE: 2330) said on Feb. 10 that the total volume of its sales in January hit a record high, due to the growth of the demand for the high-end 28-nm and 20-nm processors.

TSMC posted US$2.77 billion sales for January, up 25.3% from a month earlier and a massive 69.4% from a year earlier. The figure also beat the previous month-high of US$2.6 billion, which was recorded in October last year.

While the conventional wisdom always said that the first quarter of the year would always be a slow season for global semiconductor sector, TSMC’s latest performances in terms of its sales did not reflect that saying at all. Integrated circuit designers, indeed, are suffering from a slow season but they continued to place their orders to foundry operators to secure chip supply for the future. TSMC, meanwhile, is one of the benefited suppliers.

In January, TSMC forecast that its consolidated sales would range between US$7.13 billion and US$7.23 billion during first quarter. The prediction beat an earlier market forecast of a 3% to 5% drop caused by slow season effects.

TSMC said that the company will be confident of the rest of this year whether it is slow seasons. But, TSMC said that a month-on-month decline for February can be expected anyway, due to a reduced number of working days because of the Lunar New Year.

Meanwhile, United Microelectronics Corp (UMC)(TPE: 2303), TSMC’s rival, reported that its consolidated sales for January rose 5.6% from a month earlier to US$415 million on the back of solid demand for its 28nm process, fending off slow season impact. The figure for UMC’s sales in January was also up 28% from a year earlier.

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MediaTek (TPE: 2454) will enjoy a bigger share this year of the high-end smartphone chip market because of a better product mix, a European brokerage said on Feb. 10.

The brokerage cannot be identified due to Financial Supervisory Commission’s regulations, now that the information and forecast it shared may have impacted local bourse.

The brokerage said that MediaTek is planning to finish its designs for three generations of high-end smartphone integrated circuit products in 2015 by using 28-nm, 20-nm and 16-nm process technologies. It may end up with higher operating expenses but it will also end up with higher gross margin, the brokerage said.

“Overall, we expect MediaTek to enjoy its high-end and mid-end smartphone IC share gain. In addition, MediaTek is improving its position among China’s 4G smartphone makers in the mid-end to high-end market,” the brokerage said.

MediaTek remains the leading chip supplier to Chinese smartphone vendors. On Feb. 9, the company reported lower-than-expected earnings of US$0.21 per share for the fourth quarter last year. The company forecast a 10% to 18% sequential decline in its revenue for the first quarter this year, with an estimated profit margin of 12% to 18%, which is below market expectation of 21% because of rising research and development expanses.

On Feb. 9, an anonymous Japanese brokerage kept its “reduce” rating on MediaTek shares and cut its price target from US$14.5 to US$12.9. It said that MediaTek might have been struggling with a “learning curve” for 4G chips as it has been trying to catch up with bigger rival Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM).

“The operating expenses hike in 2015 showed MediaTek’s strong ambition in catching up with Qualcomm, but also implied that narrowing the technology gap is not easy, which reinforced our view that MediaTek remains in a transition period,” the Japanese brokerage said.

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HTC (TPE: 2498) and Samsung (KRX: 005930) both introduced its new low-cost mid-tier smartphones to Taiwan on Feb. 9.

HTC, the Taiwanese smartphone maker, introduced the Desire 626, which is equipped with a 5-inch HD 720p display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 quad-core 1.2GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage capacity, a 13-megapixel main camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing camera and 4G LTE connectivity.

HTC North Asia President Jack Tong (董俊良) described Desire 626 as a feature-rich model at a low price. Without revealing the deal date for its debut, Tong said that the new mid-tier smartphone will be available later this month at US$190 each, and it will target budget-conscious and young consumers.

“We hope that our total sale volume and market share will see significant growth this year,” Tong said.

Tong said that HTC had the highest share in each of the US$483-US$645, US$322-US$483 and US$161-US$322 phone segments in Taiwan last year, and that the company is planning to extend its success to the lower price band this year. He said that HTC is targeting a 25% share of the sub-US$161 phone segment in 2015, which will translate into an estimated 375,000 units of phone sales for HTC and boost the company’s overall market share in Taiwan by 5%.

Samsung Galaxy E7 (Photo Courtesy of Samsung)

For Samsung, HTC’s Korean rival, the new Galaxy E7 is the weapon to compete with HTC’s Desire 626.

The Galaxy E7 is Samsung’s first mid-range smartphone which comes along with a 5.5-inch display and a price tag of US$317.

The E7 also marks Samsung’s latest foray into the sub-US$322 price band, as Taiwanese smartphones priced between US$161 and US$322 accounted for about 33% of total sales last year, up from 24%.

“Samsung is a pioneer of 5.5-inch smartphones,” said Andy Tu (杜偉昱), general manager for Samsung Taiwan’s mobile communication team. “We are aiming to provide a full range of products before the Lunar New Year holiday.”

In addition to the Galaxy E7, Samsung also introduced the Galaxy E5 and the Galaxy Grand Max. The 5.25-inch Grand Max will go on sale later this month at US$257, while the price of the 5-inch E5 will be announced at a later date.

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HTC (TPE: 2498) said on Feb. 6 that its revenue for the first quarter could fall short of analysts’ expectations but is hoping for a business boost for 2016, after it announced its partnership with Under Armour (NYSE: UA), an American sports clothing and accessories supplier.

“HTC finished 2014 with a third consecutive quarter of profitability, and is well-positioned to build on that solid platform in the year ahead by ensuring our portfolio is highly targeted and our message clearly communicated,” said Peter Chou (周永明), CEO for HTC. “Key to our improved sales performance was our ability to offer tailored product mixes at suitable price points within the regions, which enabled us to closely address the needs of specific markets.”

HTC said that the slow business came from a slow season for consumer electronics. The company estimated that the revenue for the first quarter this year will range between US$1.32 billion and US$1.43 billion, down by 6% to 13% from the US$1.54 billion seen during the fourth quarter last year.

Analysts anticipated HTC’s revenue to be flat or increase slightly sequentially based on its wider offering of smartphones and accessories. Gross profit margin for HTC was expected to slide to between 19.5% and 20% during the first quarter this year from 20.4% during the last quarter last year, with the estimated earnings per share of US$0.002 to US$0.015.

HTC said that the company stayed profitable during last quarter last year, with year-on-year revenue growth of 12%, and net income was US$16.1 million. Chou said that the company’s revenue for January was US$396 million, down 19.16% from the previous month but up 26.93% from a year earlier.

Regarding HTC’s partnership with Under Armour during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, Chief Financial Officer and Global Sales President Chang Chia-lin (張嘉臨) said that it may help boost business for 2016.

“We certainly hope that it will become more meaningful in the second half of 2015 and become more material in financial terms into 2016 and beyond,” Chang said.

Chang said that the partnership with Under Armour will drive many follow-up projects for HTC, including some “exciting” non-smartphone products that are expected to be launched in the first half of the year.

Chang, however, did not elaborate what “exciting” products he was referring to.

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Acer (TPE: 2353) said that the company is confident of its business scale in 2016 after its successful efforts to return to the profit-making direction.

“I hope we can gain momentum and expand our business scale starting from 2016. In 2015, we expect to find the right direction for our business and then speed up the momentum in 2016,” said Stan Shih (施振榮), founder for Acer.

Shih said that Acer, the leading Taiwanese PC maker, has expanded from hardware manufacturing into several new business with a profitable outlook, which will pave the way for faster growth of the company in the long term.

“Acer is like a big ship sailing in the ocean, but we lost direction in the past few years. We spent the entire year steadying ourselves last year, and I think now we have found the right direction to a new continent,” Shih said.

Acer’s revenue for 2014 declined to an eight-year low of US$10.49 billion. The PC maker has been moving beyond hardware manufacturing into software and services as the PC industry remains stagnated.

Acer Chief Executive Jason Chen (陳俊聖) said that the company will continue to invest in cloud computing this year, in return of a hope be profitable by the end of 2015.

“Our goal is to keep Acer’s core business and new businesses profitable and growing this year,” Chen said.

After a management reshuffle in January 2014, Acer began to emerge from three consecutive years of operating losses. The company’s new strategy “Build Your Own Cloud” became the hope for the company to increase the gross revenue of its cloud application business in 2015 by acquiring more corporate customers and increasing the payout rate for individual users. Acer said that the company has seen the number of individual users of its free cloud services jump from five million last year to six million as of Jan. 21. Shih said that the figure was estimated to reach 10 million during the first six months of this year.

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Google Taiwan (NASDAQ: GOOGL) launched a tutorial and training program – the Digital Mars Initiative – to help college graduates hook up with local companies and eventually get hired.

“Why ‘Digital Mars Initiative?’ The name ‘Mars’ came into the picture because these ‘Martians’ think differently with more innovative and new ideas and we are helping them to get into the digital marketing field,” said Stanley Chen (陳俊廷), Google Taiwan’s country director.

Chen made his remarks during a press conference at Google Taiwan’s headquarters on Feb. 5. During previous conversations with Google’s vendors, Chen said, he has often heard complaints that employers had hard time recruiting the right talents while college graduates had a hard time getting hired, because what they have learned on the campus may not be the advantage for them to be recruited.

“We decided to offer the chance to help, train and recruit these young men and help our friends in different industries find their right employees at the same time,” Chen said.

Chen said that the 60 companies in 13 industries participated in the program and offered up to 170 vacancies in marketing, gaming, e-commerce and mass communications, while the average monthly paycheck for these jobs would fall between US$967 and US$1,451. The “Digital Mars Initiative” is the largest talent recruiting project across the Asia-Pacific region, Chen said, and is aiming to help at least 2,000 Taiwanese college graduates by the end of this year.

Those who register online will receive free courses by Google, including digital marketing and keyword advertising – the Good Adwords.  After they complete the courses, Google will also offer chances for them to be certified.

“Google is optimistic about the potential and competitive advantage of the Taiwanese workforce and will continue to strengthen local young people’s abilities through diverse and long-term talent cultivation projects,” said Google Taiwan Managing Director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰).

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Inventec Corp (TPE: 2356), a mobile device maker and the major supplier for China’s Xiaomi, said that it will begin mass production at a new factory in India during the second half of 2015 as part of its overseas expansion.

Huang Kuo-chun (黃國鈞), Inventec’s general manager, said that the company’s new plant is located in Chennai, a southern city of India. The plan has been approved by the company’s board of directors on Jan. 26. Initial production is expected to start in the late second quarter or early third quarter before entering mass production in the second half of the year, Huang said.

Huang said that the new plant in India, where is the world’s third-biggest smartphone market, will be used to assemble smartphones as well as other electronic devices, while components will be purchased from local Indian suppliers.

“In addition to China, India will mark our first step toward expanding capacity,” Huang said.

In the meantime, Huang also said that it remains unclear how much the Indian factory will account for Inventec’s total capacity in the next two years.

“Inventec’s major customers are ‘optimistic’ about its investment in the Indian plant but noted that there are still some challenges for the company to enter the Indian market, including the diverse Indian languages and cultural differences,” Huang said.

For now, he said, Inventec has a smartphone assembly factory in Nanjing, China, where monthly production capacity has increased from six million units last year to eight million units currently and is estimated to reach 10 million by the end of this year.

During a press conference last month, Inventec Chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said that the company’s shipments of mobile devices were estimated to increase from 30 million units in 2014 to 50 million in 2015, helped largely by the increasing orders from major customers like Xiaomi and growth in tablet computers.

Xiaomi, the leading Chinese smartphone maker, sold a total of 61.1 million smartphones in 2014, tripled from 18.7 million units in 2013. The “Chinese Apple” aimed to ship 100 million smartphones this year, of which Inventec is expected to receive 50% of the orders.

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Siemens AG’s (ETR: SIE) Taiwan branch said that its revenue this year will grow at a similar rate as Taiwan’s economy.

“We are aiming to grow on average at least as much as the country’s GDP is growing. That’s our target,” said Erdal Elver, president and chief executive officer for Siemens Taiwan.

Elver made his remarks during a year-end press conference in Taipei. Taiwanese government and several economic research organizations predicted that Taiwan’s GDP for 2015 should fall between 3.28% and 3.6%. Elver said that Siemens recorded a revenue growth rate last year that was “similar” to Taiwan’s economic growth of 3.51%, but he did not give an exact figure.

Elver said that Siemens’ global business has made substantive progress in the intensely competitive international environment, with its new orders reaching US$88.9 billion and revenues totaling US$81.5 billion for the fiscal year of 2014.

Siemens’ revenues for 2014, Elver said, increased 1% from the previous fiscal year of 2013, as the company registered the net income of

The company registered net income of US$6.3 billion, an increase of 25% from the fiscal year of 2013. Elver said that Siemens Taiwan will continue to promote its “Grow Taiwan Together” initiative and provide solutions in key areas such as sustainable energy, future of manufacturing and intelligent urban infrastructure.

“Siemens Taiwan continues to embrace its commitment to Taiwan and strives to forge a sustainable future for Taiwan’s energy and industrial sectors,” Elver said.

In the area of smart manufacturing, Elver said, Siemens is introducing digital factory and advanced manufacturing concepts to Taiwan with the focus on integrating the entire industrial value chain on both the digitalization and automation levels.

“This will significantly boost flexibility and efficiency for Taiwanese manufacturers in product development while shortening the time needed for these products to reach the market,” Elver said.

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A latest research by TrendForce said that the worldwide tablet market has entered its maturity as the total global shipments for 2014 declined 2.2%, to compare with the same figure for 2013.

TrendForce’s study said that the total worldwide tablet shipments in 2014 reached 192 million units.

Regarding the phenomenon, TrendForce said that tablets do not have a strong productive role in everyday life for consumers, and are susceptible to substitution. The tablet market, however, did not have a noticeable replacement demand and additional growth was limited.

“In addition to the first-ever drop in total shipment volume, the rankings of the global top five brands also changed in 2014,” said Caroline Chen (陳虹燕), assistant research manager for TrendForce’s WitsView.

She said that the combined market shares of the top five brand names’ tablets fell from 70% in 2013 and 66.1% in 2014.

“This shows that the appeal of big-name brands is fading, and consumers are not as loyal to a particular brand as before with different options now in their horizons,” she said.

Quoting the research report for the global tablet market share rankings, TrendForce said that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) remained the leader in the tablet market now that its tablet shipments reached 63.4 million units in 2014, but it was still a 14.6% plunge to compare with the same statistics a year earlier. The latest generation of iPads, TrendForce said, do not offer extensive upgrades compared with the earlier generations, showing signs that the iPad’s hardware advancement has reached a ceiling.

As the second tablet seller in the global market, Samsung (KRX: 005930) also experienced a decline in its tablet shipments that the total amount of its 2014 shipments was 41 million units, a 2.5% decline, TrendForce’s report said.

Samsung struggled hard to keep up with its rivals in 2014, although it has a relatively wider range of product categories, from seven to 12 inches tablets.

Meanwhile, Lenovo (HKG: 0992) managed to push Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) out of the number three spot in the worldwide tablet brand rankings with its expansion of product lines and complete positioning in the price spectrum.

Lenovo increased its global market share to 5.6%.

Asus (TPE: 2357) occupied the fourth place on the rankings. Asus made it to the top five due to its promotion of the US$99 tablets and its well-established Transformer product line.

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The latest Hurun Global Rich List 2015 said that Want Want Group Chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) is the richest man in Taiwan.

Hurun said that Tsai owns a total asset of at least US$10 billion.

The ranking, which was made for billionaires around the world, was compiled and organized by Chinese magazine Hurun Report and sponsored by Star River Property, a Chinese luxury home builder. The annual ranking listed a total of 48 Taiwanese people on this year’s rich man chart. Among them, former Taiwanese vice president Lien Chan (連戰) is the only listed man who is not a businessman but owns a total asset of US$6.1 billion. In addition, Lien is also the first Taiwanese politician to be listed on the Hurun Report.

For those listed Chinese billionaires, the richest man is Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), chairman of Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Group (HKG: 0001), who has a fortune of US$32 billion.

 Hong Kong real estate tycoon Lee Shau-kee (李兆基) followed Li’s ranking as the second richest Chinese man with US$26.5 billion.

The richest man in China is Hanergy Holdings Chairman Li Hejun (李河君) with total assets of US$26 billion, followed by Dalian Wanda Group (HKG: 3699) Chairman Wang Jianlin (王健林) with US$25 billion and Alibaba Group (NYSE: BABA) Chairman Jack Ma (馬雲) with his assets of US$24.5 billion.

Bill Gates, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder, remains on the top of the chart with a fortune of US$85 billion. Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican telecommunications mogul, checks in the second place on the chart with his assets of US$83 billion, followed by American investor Warren Buffett with US$76 billion, Hurun said.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder for Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), is on the 7^th place with US$44 billion.

Hurun said that there are 2,089 people with a fortune of at least US$1 billion, including 537 Americans and 430 Chinese billionaires.

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More than two telecom operators, foreign and domestic, are interested in becoming the majority shareholder and the actual operator for the telecom company Taiwan Star, as the scandal-plagued food conglomerate Ting Hsin Group has been trying to sell its stakes.

Taiwan Star Chairman Wei Ying-chiao (魏應交), who also heads the Ting Hsin Group, confirmed on Feb. 2 that Ting Hsin will withdraw from Taiwan Star by selling its 52% stake in the telecom company.

Chunghwa Telecom (TPE: 2412) and Far EasTone Telecommunications (TPE: 4904) are the two potential buyers who have been confirmed for their contacting Ting Hsin for potential acquisition of its 52% stake of Taiwan Star. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (TPE: 2317) is also a potential buyer although the long-term supplier for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has already owned the Asia Pacific Telecom (TPE: 3682). In addition, Ting Hsin also confirmed that Japan-based telecom operator KDDI (TYO: 9433) has been discussing the potential deal with them during the past few months.

When approached for responses, Taiwan Star declined to elaborate or reveal more details.

“It was inappropriate for my company to comment on a possible buyout o the stake owned by Ting Hsin at this moment,” said Cliff Lai (賴弦五) ,president for Taiwan Star.

In addition to Ting Hsin, Taiwan Star’s other shareholders are Cathay Financial Holding Co (TPE: 2882), which holds a 20% stake, Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co (TPE: 2392) and the Kingpo Group, which both have 10% stakes, and the CTBC Group (TPE: 2891), which has an 8% stake.

When approached, Cathay Financial Holdings President Lee Chang-ken (李長庚) said that the Taiwan Star stake it owns is part of its financial strategy and the company has no plan to make any change of it as of now.

Why is Ting Hsin selling its stake?

Ting Hsin was impacted by an edible oil scandal that was made front page stories last October, when its subsidiaries were discovered to be selling cooking oils containing ingredients unfit for human consumption. The scandal sparked outrage among local consumers, who launched a nationwide boycott of Ting Hsin’s products and services, including Taiwan Star.

The increasing condemnation of the conglomerate’s business practices have made it more difficult for the group to survive in Taiwan, while its cash flow was seriously affected at the same time. Ting Hsin then began to sell its shares of Taiwan Star, Taipei 101 and its flagship food unit Wei Chuan Foods Corp (TPE: 1201) because of its negative public image.

Wei Ying-chung (魏應充), Wei Ying-chiao’s brother and former chairman of Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co, has been detained for the cooking oil scandal since last October but was released on US$3.22 million bail on Jan. 28. Changhua District Court decided to maintain its decision to grant bail to Wei and declined the appeal by prosecutors. The ruling came after the Taiwan High Court ordered the lower court to reconsider its decision to allow Wei to be released on the US$3.22 million. On Feb. 3, Changhua District Court again granted Wei’s bail but increased the amount to US$9.66 million.

In the meantime, the court also upheld its previous decision to release three other defendants in the case, including former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat President Chang Mei-fang (常梅峰), the company’s former acting chairman Chen Mao-chia (陳茂嘉), and Yang Chen-yi (楊振益), who owns the Vietnamese trading company Dai Hanh Phuc Co — on US$161,290 bail.

In November 2013, Wei Ying-chung was indicted on charges of fraud as part of an investigation into the 2013 Taiwan food scandal. In October 2014, prosecutors launched a separate investigation into the 2014 Taiwan food scandal, that alleged a unit of Ting Hsin International Group over sale of tainted cooking oil.

Investigators discovered that Cheng-I Food Co, a subsidiary company of Ting Hsin, was alleged for mixing animal feed oil with cooking oil and then selling it to the public.

Regarding Ting Hsin’s attempts to sell its 33.17% stakes of Taipei 101, no further decision or agreement was made as of press time, now that Ting Hsin has been trying to close the deal with Malaysia’s IOI Properties Group Bhd since last November, especially the case has been declined by the Taiwanese government, due to a policy that the major shareholder of the building should not be a foreign investment.

The real price of the deal was never confirmed but Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance estimated that Ting Hsin could have made profits of at least US$636 million but the group will only have to pay a tax amount of approximately US$33 million.

The Ting Hsin International Group, headquartered in Taipei and Tianjin, was established by Wei Ing-chou (魏應州), Wei Ying-jiao, Wei Ying-chung and Wei Ying-xin (魏應行) in 1958. As natives from Yungching Township, Changhua County, the Weis also own Wei Chuan, FamilyMart, and Master Kong instant noodles as subsidiary brand names under Ting Hsin.

Ting Hsin purchased 33.17% of Taipei 101’s shares and became the major shareholder for the building since 2009.

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Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its Taiwan rival Acer (TPE: 2353) finished its fiscal year of 2014 with similar number of shipments for laptops, TrendForce said in its latest research.

Last year, Apple posted a spectacular 46.4% annual growth in laptop shipments, owing to its price-lowering strategy for its MacBook laptops, which resulted in a takeover of the mid-range and premium market segments, TrendForce said.

The high growth boosted Apple’s global market share to 9.3% in 2014, vaulting the company into sixth place in the global rankings, one spot behind Acer, which had a 10% market share.

Acer depended on its remarkable performance of its Chromebook laptops to maintain its shipment volume in the market. Although there was no significant rise in Acer’s total shipments, the company managed to slow its slide, dropping only one place in the global rankings last year, the research firm said.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Asus (TPE: 2357) expanded its global market share to 11%, leaping into fourth place in the rankings.

Its performance was attributed mainly to the success of its 10.1-inch, 2-in-1 model T100 laptop, which accounted for over 10% of the company’s total shipments in 2014.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) remained the lead in the 2014 global laptop market with a 20.1% share, followed by Lenovo (HKG: 0992) with a 17.5% share, and Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) with 12.3%.

TrendForce said that global notebook shipments in 2014 totaled 175.5 million units, up by an annual 3.6%, boosted by the replacement of the Windows XP operating system and the promotion of low-priced notebooks by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT).

“In 2015, the laptop market will only be able to maintain the same overall shipment level as last year, and the growth of some brands will come at the expense of others,” said Caroline Chen (陳虹燕), assistant research manager for TrendForce’s WitsView.

She forecasted that HP and its major rival Lenovo will continue to hold the top two spots this year, while the competition will remain tight between the third and the sixth places.

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Jeff Gordon, HTC’s (TPE: 2498) senior global online communications manager, described iPhone as a “boring” handset due to its lack of unique features on his tweeter on Jan. 28, despite Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) record-high quarterly revenues.

“Congrats to Apple on an amazing quarter. It’s not that I dislike Apple — in fact I use a MacBook Air — but that I find the iPhone terribly boring,” he said. “The iPhone is ‘a boring, easy choice’ that fails to fit his desire for ‘a phone that’s more unique, more personal, more stunning when I take it out of my pocket.’”

Gordon’s remarks were referred to Apple’s selling a higher-than-expected 74.5 million iPhones and generating a record-high US$74.6 billion in revenues in the last quarter of 2014, led by the new big-screen iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Gordon said that his company’s 2015 product roadmap will be “best ever,” with “some huge surprises that will blow you away,” but he did not elaborate.

HTC has invited the press to an event which was scheduled to be organized on March 1, which will be one day before the Mobile World Congress tech fair that will take place in Barcelona between March 2 and March 5.

He did not elaborate.

Earlier this month, the Taoyuan-based phone vendor sent out invitations to media outlets for an event to be held March 1, one day before the Mobile World Congress (MWC) tech fair that will take place in Barcelona between March 2 and March 5. HTC did not reveal any detail of the event but it was speculated that the company will launch the successor to its flagship HTC One M9 during the event, which will also be the world’s largest mobile phone trade show, in a bid to steal the spotlight from other handset manufacturers.

In the meantime, “Hima,” which will come along with a 5-inch quad-HD screen with a resolution of 1440X2560 pixels, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core chipset, 3GB of RAM, a 20.7 –megapixel rear camera, a 13-megapixel front camera and a 3,500mAh battery, is alleged to be the next-generation HTC flagship phone.

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An anonymous U.S.-based brokerage said on Feb. 2 that Samsung (KRX: 005930) will become the major supplier for the processors for Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) next-generation iPhone series in 2015.

The latest research by the brokerage said that Apple is trying to diversify its foundry suppliers since 2015, now that it had previously partnered with only one foundry for each generation of processors, including with Samsung for the 32-nm and 28-nm processes, and with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)(TPE: 2330) for the 20-nm process.

The brokerage firm’s name cannot be revealed under new rules by Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission now that the firm’s latest research report offers specific forecasts that may impact the market.

The brokerage firm said that with broader offerings in the pipeline such as a larger iPad and a low-end iPhone, it seemed to be clear that Apple will have a much more diverse semiconductor portfolio.

“Our view is going forward, with so many more products, it becomes easier for Apple to use multiple foundries, and to split manufacturing by products,” the brokerage said.

Given Samsung’s bullish outlook on its 14-nm process and TSMC’s guidance that the 16-nm process will only make a single-digit contribution to its revenues by the end of 2015, Samsung will likely get the orders for new iPhone chips in 2015, the brokerage said in its research report.

The report predicted that that TSMC will continue producing the A8 chips used in the current iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models in the first half of 2015. The report said that TSMC could also make the 20-nm chip for a low-end iPhone and a 16-nm chip for a high-end iPad in the second half of the year.

The brokerage’s latest research report estimated that TSMC’s revenues from Apple will grow from 6.5% of total sales in 2014 to 9.6% in 2015. For the second half of this year, 
the report said, TSMC’s revenues from Apple are expected to drop by around 40% from the same period a year earlier, assuming that Apple switches to Samsung for the new iPhone chips.

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The Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said on Jan. 30 that Taiwan’s economy grew 3.51% last year, slightly above the government’s earlier forecast of 3.43%.

DGBAS said that the nation registered a real GDP growth of 3.17% during the last quarter of 2014, beating its own estimate in November of 2.83%. The DGBAS said that despite a series of food safety scandals and crisis in Taiwan during the fourth quarter last year, the domestic economy remained steady and continued to grow, which was the main reason to beat its own forecast last November.

Quoting its statistics, DGBAS said that during the period between October and December, Taiwan’s exports in electronics, machinery and base metal all increased, while outbound sales in gasoline/diesel and plastics/rubber products offset total exports.

The DGBAS said that after inflationary adjustment, real exports in merchandise and services during the fourth quarter last year showed the year-on-year growth of 5.57%, while merchandise and services imports grew 4.59% from the previous year. In the meantime, retail sales for the fourth quarter were boosted by a 4.31% year-on-year sales growth in the auto industry.

DGBAS said, however, the statistics showed that the food safety scandals during the last quarter for 2014 did hurt consumer sentiment to some extent. A positive factor, however, was the local government elections in late November, which boosted spending during the campaign period, the DGBAS said, which became a reason that retail revenue in Taiwan grew 3.08% year-on-year in the fourth quarter, and private consumption increased 2.33%.

DGBAS’ statistics also showed that fixed capital formation also increased, rising 2.19% from a year earlier. Capital equipment imports, however, showed a 1.74% plunge as a result of a higher comparison base in the same period of 2013.

As for the first three quarters of 2014, DGBAS said, Taiwan’s GDP grew 3.41%, 3.87% and 3.63%, respectively.

The DGBAS was scheduled to issue a preliminary report on the nation’s GDP growth for the whole of 2014 and an updated forecast for 2015 sometime in the upcoming February. In its most recent prediction last November, it forecast a 3.50% growth for 2015.

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A latest survey said on Jan. 30 that approximately 87% of employers in Taiwan, foreign and domestic, will offer year-end bonuses to their employees this year.

The poll was conducted by the 1111 Job Bank while a total of 540 employers in Taiwan participated in the questionnaire. Approximately 86.53% of them said that they have prepared related year-end bonuses to their employees and will issue them before the Lunar New Year, which will fall on Feb. 19 this year.

Statistics of the annual survey by the 1111 Job Bank showed that approximately 94.72% of employers in Taiwan said that they were offering year-end bonuses in 2006, and the figure continued to go down until this year. The job bank said that the higher percentage of those employers who are willing to offer the year-end bonuses reflected a recovery in both domestic and global economy.

Prior to the survey, the government released an advance estimate earlier, saying that that Taiwan’s GDP grew 3.51% last year, beating its previous forecast of a 3.43% increase.

Due to an improvement in earnings, the survey discovered that most employers will issue year-end bonuses equivalent to 1.34 months of monthly paychecks on average, up from 1.33 months which was seen a year earlier. The figure was a high since 2011, when the average year-end bonuses equaled 1.41 months of salary.

Quoting the survey, the job bank said that 17.4% of the employers who will issue bonuses said that their employees are expected to get higher year-end bonuses this year. In the meantime, 56% of the employers said that they will issue bonuses based on employee performances, while 31.1% of them said that they will take seniority into consideration.

Among all the various industries, the survey said, the manufacturing sector, which has got a boost from rising global demand, will offer the most amount year-end bonuses to their employees, followed by the financial sector and the services sector.

The job bank said, however, the year-end bonuses to be issued by the property development sector will lag behind these three sectors as the local housing market has been sluggish. Employees from the property sector, however, have enjoyed the fattest checks for their year-end bonuses last year, the job bank said.

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A latest survey released by the European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) said on Jan. 29 that it will become more and more difficult for companies to recruit quality employees in Taiwan, due to slow wage increases.

Michael Page Salary and Employment Forecasts, an annual survey by ECCT, said that Taiwan’s job market has been underperforming if it is compared with those developed Asian economies.

The survey showed that there are many technology firms for innovation in Taiwan, and these high-tech companies continue to hire and recruit talents in fields of design, research and development, but, a serious brain drain also continued to affect Taiwan as the nation has experienced very little wage inflation during the past decades.

“Companies — in particularly high-tech companies — from China, Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as other locations around the world including California, have targeted Taiwanese talent,” said Chris Preston, regional director of Michael Page Taiwan. “Because salaries in Taiwan have been stagnant in recent years, Taiwanese people who go abroad for their careers know that they will need to take a pay cut if they decide to return to Taiwan,” Preston said.

In Taiwan, 65% of surveyed employers expect to offer salary increases of between 1% and 5% in the coming year, in line with Hong Kong. In China, however, 61% of surveyed employers plan to offer salary increases of between 6% and 10%, as Chinese employers are willing to pay top paychecks to the best employees and offer more moderate pay rises for average employees, according to the survey.

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Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) announced on Jan. 29 that a small team for better support business will be launched in Taipei.

“Taiwan is a priority market for Facebook. We want to help local businesses, both big and small, to grow locally and regionally,” said Dan Neary, Facebook’s vice president for Asia-Pacific.

Facebook said that the small team was designed for rolling out workshops and roadshows, and targeting specifically at advertising and media agencies, small and medium-sized business, brands and developers, throughout the year. Facebook, however, did not elaborate how many employees they will recruit in Taipei office and when this office will be launched.

“We have seen small business like online seafood retailer i3fresh grow their market share and experience a three-fold increase in sales through their campaigns on Facebook. Brands like Estee Lauder (FRA: ELAA) were also able to leverage Facebook to reach specific target audience groups,” Neary said. “They ran a campaign around its Resilience Lift Diamond product in Taiwan and found the Facebook platform to be 40 times more efficient at reaching the target audience than TV.”

Jayne Leung (梁幼莓), head of Greater China for Facebook, said that the establishment for the Facebook Taiwan office will increase the level of support available to Taiwanese clients and agencies.

“We recognize the potential and opportunities that Taiwan presents and are looking forward to working closely with Taiwan businesses, partners and the government to help local businesses grow,” she said.

Taiwan’s Vice Premier Simon Chang (張善政) visited the new office privately on Thursday morning (Jan. 29) and said that in addition to the office, he is also hoping that Facebook will set up a data center in Taiwan.

“Of course I hope so. Who wouldn’t want that?” Chang said.

Chang, a former executive for Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), said that Facebook plays a crucial role in the daily lives for Taiwanese people. He said that Facebook’s Taiwan office will introduce more innovative marketing tools and business models for local e-commerce operators and help encourage young app developers in the country.

In response, Facebook said that all kinds of proposals remain possible, but no specific decision is made as of now.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs said that Taiwan Facebook Ltd was established in Taipei’s Xinyi District on Dec. 24 last year, with capital of US$95,400. Leung, head of Greater China for Facebook, serves as the representative of the local branch. Facebook said in an email statement that it has a few key areas of focus in Taiwan, with the top priority being educating and helping business understand and reap the benefits of the Facebook platform. Data from Facebook indicated that there are approximately 15 million active Facebook users in Taiwan, while 13 million of them log on via mobile devices.

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Taiwan was ranked the 14^th in the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom for 2015, which was three notches up from a year earlier.

The foundation said that Taiwan scored 75.1 points in the 2015 index, up 1.2 from a year earlier, to take 14th place among the 186 countries in the world covered by this year’s index, up from the 17th in 2014. Taiwan’s score in the index has improved since 2009 and hit a new high this year.

In the Asia Pacific region, Taiwan was ranked as the fifth among the 42 countries that were covered, following Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, and Australia, while Taiwan’s score was well above the world average.

Among the 10 sub-indexes in the Index of Economic Freedom, Taiwan made improvements in seven categories, including investment freedom, government size/spending, labor freedom, freedom from corruption, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, and monetary freedom.

In the meantime, Taiwan’s performance was unchanged in two other categories — property rights and financial freedom — and it slipped in the category of business freedom although Taiwan still managed to rank eighth in the world in the category.

“Prudent macroeconomic policy within a stable legal and monetary environment has been the key to rising levels of economic freedom over the past five years,” the Heritage Foundation wrote in its summary of Taiwan’s results. “Commitment to structural reforms and openness to global commerce have enabled Taiwan to advance far into the ‘mostly free’ category.”

The foundation said that Taiwan’s efficient business environment received a boost from a low corporate tax rate and the nation’s efforts in eliminating minimum capital requirements for incorporating a company. The foundation said, however, that Taiwan still faces threats to its overall economic freedom from a relatively high level of perceived corruption and a rigid labor market.

For other Asian nations or regions, Hong Kong remained on the top of the economic freedom rankings although its overall score fell 0.5 points to 89.6. Meanwhile, Singapore checked in the second with a score of 89.4 points, followed by New Zealand with 82.1 points, Australia with 81.4 points, and Switzerland’s 80.5 points.

Japan was ranked the 20th with a score of 73.3 points, and South Korea finished in the 29th place with a score of 71.5. China scored 52.7 points to be ranked as the 139th.

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Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) said on Jan. 28 that Taiwan is one of the top five markets for its app store by revenue.

“It was not a surprise to see three Asian markets in the top-five list given the high smartphone penetration rates in these countries, which in turn leads to strong demand for mobile games,” said Chris Yerga, vice president of engineering and head of Google Play in Asia Pacific. “The top five Google Play markets are in Asia – Taiwan, Japan and South Korea – and the United States also was part of that group.”

Yerga, however, did not elaborate the fifth market or give the specific rankings of the top five, saying only that the figures were not for public consumption.

Google Play, originally the Android Market, is a digital distribution platform operated by Google. It also serves as the official app store for the Android system on mobile devices, that users are able to browse, download, and purchase specific applications developed with the Android SDK and published through Google.

Google Play has more than one million free and paying apps and over 50 billion downloads today, while it was launched as the official app store for Google’s Android operating system in 2012. Google Play offered music, games, magazines, books, movies and television programs. Google Play’s game services received 100 million new users between January and June last year, making it the fastest-growing mobile gaming network of all time.

A poll by the Institute for Information Industry which was released last December revealed that 13.55 million Taiwanese users aged over 12 had a smartphone during the last six months last year, representing 65.4% of Taiwan’s 12 and over population. That was up from a smartphone penetration rate of 58.7% during the first six months last year.

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