The nation's sluggish auto market witnessed another sharp drop in the first 10 months of the year, with no signs of a pickup in the last two months of the year, automakers said yesterday.
Car sales from January to last month totaled 309,243 units, rep-resenting a 30 percent drop from the corresponding period last year, according to figures released by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
Sharp dips
Ford Lio Ho Motor Co (
Yulon Nissan Motor Co (裕隆日產), the third-largest automaker, did not fare much better, with sales dipping 41 percent to 33,950 units.
The top two manufacturers, Hotai Motor Co (
The statistics also showed that sales last month were down 30 percent to only 23,005 cars compared with the year-earlier period.
Promotions
"As vendors launched aggressive promotions in late September, this absorbed some of the sales in October," said Steven Yang (楊湘泉), spokesman for Hotai Motor.
With no positive catalysts in sight to stimulate sales and the upcoming mayoral elections in Taipei and Kaohsiung likely to deter buying sentiment, Yang said that sales would likely remain lackluster for the remainder of the year.
Sales for the entire year would likely follow the downward pattern, dropping 30 percent to around 360,000 units, he said.
But sales are expected to show a slight improvement to 380,000 units next year as the consumer bad-debt problem fades, Yang said.
Given the rising cost of materials, automakers said they are considering a small price hike for locally produced cars next year.
Huang Wen-cheng (
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
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
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],”