China Motor Corp (
"The tie-up with DaimlerChrysler and the Chinese partner will provide us a new growth business, especially at a time that Taiwan's auto market is gradually shrinking," said China Motor spokesman Hsu Li-min (
Hsu said China Motor will hold about 17 percent of the new venture, DaimlerChrysler Vans China, which will involve a total investment of 200 million euros by the various firms involved.
Fujian Automotive Industry Corp (
Initially, China Motor will make 20,000 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, Vito and Viano vans at the factory located in Fuzhou. The company hopes to roll out 40,000 vehicles a year in the future.
"The joint venture will have a positive effect on China Motor," said Kevin Chung (
Chung expects China Motor shares to rise to as much as NT$68.0 each in January.
Another analyst, however, did not positively react to the news, as China Motor's shares remained unchanged to close at NT$62 each on the TAIEX yesterday.
"The deal has been factored into the market's response. Besides, it is still premature to say how much the joint venture will bring to China Motor," said Arthur Liu (
Still, what concerns investors most is the speculation that China Motor plans to sell 15-percent of its holdings in profit-making Southeast Motor Corp (
China Motor aims to pocket in NT$1.5 billon in earnings this year from Southeast Motor, and is expected to receive a greater contribution next year, China Motor's Hsu said.
"If it is true, the share sale will offset the profits brought by the joint van venture. And that will lead to a slower 10 to 20 percent sales growth for China Motor in the foreseeable future," Liu predicted.
China Motor's future sales growth will primarily come from Southeast Motor, as the company's after-tax earnings-per-share is expected to climb to NT$6.2 next year from NT$5.56 this year, he forecast.
During the third quarter, the Chinese unit's earnings, NT$0.7 a share, made up about 50 percent of China Motor's NT$1.3 earnings-per-share.
The percentage will exceed that level next year, Liu said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day