Shares of the nation's top solar cell makers dropped yesterday after industry watchers issued a caution on the industry's outlook because of a shortage of materials.
Shares of Motech Industries Inc (
"Solar-related companies may see further declines in margins, dragged down by material shortages, despite increased demand for solar energy," JP Morgan analyst Gokul Hariharan said in a report on Friday.
Most solar component makers, excluding material suppliers, saw declining margins in the first quarter, because of the supply scarcity in silicon wafers and more Chinese firms competing in the field, the analyst said.
Motech's profit margins declined to 24.4 percent in the first quarter, down 7.3 percentage points from the earlier three months. It saw sales rise 240 percent from a year earlier to NT$4.5 billion for the first four months.
E-ton's margins also dropped to 16.3 percent in the first quarter from 24.3 percent in the earlier three months. Its revenues, meanwhile, grew 99 percent to NT$1.5 billion in the first four months.
E-ton was fast to dismiss any material shortages by announcing it had sealed a 10-year supply deal yesterday.
Under the pact, the supplier will provide E-ton with 350 megawatts' worth of silicon wafers through the next 10 years, E-ton said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, without specifying the partner or the price.
SinoPac Securities Corp (建華證券) recently said they expect to see a slight easing of the supply shortage.
"With the increase in production capacity and an easing of the supply problem, solar-related companies should see stronger sales momentum this month," SinoPac said in a research note last week.
Motech said on May 9 it had won a new sales deal.
It has signed a contract with Open Energy to supply the US renewable energy company with solar cells, paving the way for Motech's expansion into the US market.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS