DaimlerChrysler presents goals
DaimlerChrysler AG is aiming to sell 5,500 Mercedes-Benz vehicles, 750 Chrysler cars and 700 Smart compacts in Taiwan this year, Volker Harms, president and CEO of DaimlerChrysler Taiwan Ltd, said yesterday at a press gathering. Harms said Mercedes-Benz still maintained a very strong position in the local passenger car market last year, with positive reaction toward its re-modeled E-Class and S-Class luxury sedans. As for Smart cars, the company is scheduled to introduce two new Smart Roadster models -- the simple Roadster and the Roadster-Coupe -- in April to boost sales, Harms said. Retail prices for the two new models were not disclosed yesterday. DaimlerChrysler sold nearly 5,000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles and 700 Chrysler-brand cars in Taiwan last year. It started selling Smart cars here in August and has sold 195 units so far this year. To meet a small but growing appetites for super luxury vehicles, the company is also planning to add Maybach brand vehicles into its product lineup later this year, Harms said.
Formosa Plastics back on track
Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), the flagship of Taiwan's largest industrial group, posted a fourth-quarter profit of NT$2.6 billion (US$75 million), compared with a loss a year earlier. The company had a net loss of NT$765 million in the fourth quarter of 2001. For the whole of 2002, profit rose 48 percent to NT$9.9 billion from NT$6.7 billion a year earlier, the company said. The company also said it plans to issue 1.55 million new shares, worth NT$68 million at the current market price, to take full ownership of affiliate Yung Chia Chemical Industries Corp (永嘉化工).
AU makes first 5G 26-inch LCD
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the nation's largest manufacturer of flat panels, announced yesterday that it successfully produced a 26-inch liquid-crystal display (LCD) TV panel on Feb. 27. The panel was produced using fifth-generation (5G) technology, which allows flat-panel manufacturers to cut bigger screens than was previously possible. In a statement, the company said it would produce its first 30-inch LCD panel in the second quarter and a 46-inch panel by the third quarter. AU's statement did not say when the company would go into mass production of the new 5G panels.
CMC Magnetics records 4Q loss
CMC Magnetics Corp (中環), the world's second-largest maker of recordable compact discs, turned to a net loss of NT$195 million (US$5.6 million) in the fourth quarter from profit of NT$704 million in the year-earlier quarter, as overseas expansion and failed investments eroded profit. For last year, CMC Magnetics turned to a loss of NT$180 million from net income of NT$3.3 billion in 2001, it said in a statement.
SEZ exits wet-bench business
Swiss-based chip-making equipment manufacturer, SEZ Group, announced yesterday that it plans to exit the wet-bench business to refocus its resources on single-wafer wet surface preparation technology. "This move will not affect any current business or future strategy in Taiwan," Fred Kranich, managing director of SEZ Taiwan Co, said yesterday. "Our wet bench division is so far focused on Europe and does not have a base in Taiwan where SEZ's market share in single-wafer technology [wet wafer surface preparation] is over 80 percent," Kranich said. "This move is also in line with a trend to single-wafer processing in mass production as pioneered in Taiwan's high end fabs."
NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, dropping NT$0.053 to close at NT$34.668 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$385 million.
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