Taiwan Ratings Corp (
"The ratings reflect Yulon's good profitability, strong balance sheet and excellent cash position... with zero debt," Taiwan Ratings, a local partner of Standard & Poors, said in a report released yesterday.
Yulon Motor reported strong pre-tax earnings of NT$6.1 billion last year, coming mainly from auto manufacturing and an investment portfolio of more than 40 companies. It projected a conservative pre-tax profit of NT$5 billion.
Taiwan Ratings said Yulon Motor's financial projections tend to be conservative, while actual results have consistently outperformed forecasts in recent years. The company's conservative management style is also one of the factors affecting the credit rating, the agency said.
However, Taiwan Ratings warned that Yulon Motor had to be cautious because "their strengths are offset by a highly competitive and saturated market."
New-car registrations in Taiwan reached 474,318 units last year, up 16.66 percent from 406,580 units in 2003, according to statistics compiled by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
Taiwan Ratings expects the figure to rise slightly this year in line with projected steady growth in Taiwan's economy, which is expected to expand 4.21 percent this year, according to the government's statistics bureau.
In addition to the new Teana sedan that hit the market last October, Yulon Motor may have to introduce a new version of its Sentra model to strengthen its position in the nation's sedan market, which still lags far behind Toyota-distributor Hotai Motor Corp (
The returns on its investment in China's Aeolus Automobile Co (風神), a joint venture with Chinese DongFeng Motor Co (東風汽車), could also help bolster the company's profits, Taiwan Ratings 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
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