■ SIA adds services
Singapore Airlines (SIA) will launch extra flights to Taipei later this year in response to strong travel demand. "The extra flights are part of Singapore Airlines' ongoing efforts to match capacity with demand, and will see more use of supplementary flights during peak seasons for some destinations," SIA said in a statement yesterday. From Oct. 30 to March 25, the carrier will operate three additional flights from Singapore to Taipei, raising its frequency to the city to 17 times a week. SIA is one of the world's most profitable airlines with net profits of S$1.39 billion (US$830 million) in the year to March 2005.
■ Cargo volume drops
Taiwan's airports and harbors, including Kaohsiung, the world's sixth-busiest container port, handled less cargo last month because of slowing exports growth and rising competition from China. Kaohsiung, Keelung and Tai-chung ports processed 1.04 million standard 20-foot containers last month, down 6.9 percent from a year earlier, statistics on the Web site of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications showed. CKS, Taipei and Kaohsiung airports handled a combined 152,820 metric tonnes of cargo for international flights last month, a 3.3 percent decline from a year earlier, the ministry said. Kaohsiung harbor and other ports handled less cargo after several Taiwanese companies built production lines in China because of lower costs.
■ Future bright for battery packs
Taiwan is expected to replace Japan as the world's largest supplier of laptop computer battery packs next year, with local manufacturers of the lithium batteries gaining an increasing share of the world market, market analysts said. Taiwan has 11 technology companies that produce battery packs for laptop computers. Together they occupy about 40 percent of the world market, second to Japan's 60 percent. The analysts said that with the manufacturers' orders steadily rising, they expected Taiwan's share of the world market to exceed 50 percent next year. Of the 11 companies that produce battery packs for laptop computers, Simplo Technology Co (新普科技) is the leader, with more than 20 percent of the world market. The company expects to receive orders for 15 million battery packs next year, increasing its global market share to 25 percent and replacing Japan's Sanyo Corp as the No. 1 supplier. Other leading manufacturers of the battery packs in Taiwan include Dynapack International Technology Corp (順達科技), Gallowire Enterprise Co (德臻科技) and Celxpert Energy Corp (加百裕).
■ Think Taiwanese `bicycle'
Taiwan will take part in Eurobike, Europe's largest bicycle trade fair, which will open on Thursday in Friedrichshafen, Germany, an official from the Taiwan External Trade Development Council said yesterday. This year's exhibition has attracted more than 800 manufacturers and retailers from 72 countries, with half of them from outside Germany, the official said. Sixteen bicycle and sports-gear manufacturers from Taiwan will take part in the exhibition, the official said, adding that the council will also set up a Taiwan pavilion to showcase the nation's products. The council said it would gain more international exposure by using the slogan "Think Bicycle [sic], Think Taiwan."
■ NT dollar drops
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, dropping NT$0.177 to close at NT$32.487. US$1.19 billion changed hands during the day's trading.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the