AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world's third-biggest maker of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels, yesterday said it had opened its second Chinese manufacturing site to boost output of LCD modules for consumer electronics including TV sets.
The site in Xiamen, Fujian Province, includes two plants and is part of the company's move to take advantage of recovering demand to expand its production capacity.
AU Optronics also operates LCD module plants in Suzhou, China. At home, the company also has LCD panel assembly plants in Lungtan, Taoyuan County, and in Taichung.
"As China continues to shape the global economic landscape, our Mainland China customers must have access to real-time and immediate support in order to be competitive and continue to expand their business," AU Optronics chairman Lee Kun-yao (
AU Optronics said it planned to make LCD modules used in consumer electronics in the Xiamen plants this year and to expand production to include computer modules next year.
With the new plant coming into line, the production of TV modules in China would double, while that of small and medium modules would increase to 1.5 times current output, it said.
In December 2005, AU Optronics' board approved a US$50 million investment to construct the Xiamen site. AU Optronics planned to spend around NT$95 billion (US$2.87 billion) on new facilities and equipment this year and NT$70 billion next year.
By the end of this year, the Xiamen site is expected to churn out 500,000 large LCD modules a month and 5 million small and medium LCD modules, it said.
To keep up with recovering demand, AU Optronics earlier this year started outsourcing panel assembly to other Taiwanese companies such as Prime View International Co (
Local rival Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (
AU Optronics plans to hire 500 more employees for the Xiamen plants by the end of this year.
Two weeks ago, CLSA Ltd gave AU Optronics and Chi Mei "under-performance" ratings over disappointing sales of LCD monitors and LCD TVs during peak season.
CLSA analyst Frank Su (
On Thursday, AU Optronics posted record sales of NT$44.1 billion (US$1.33 billion) for last month, up 89 percent from a year earlier.
Based last month's strong sales figures, Citigroup Global Markets rated AU Optronics with a "buy" recommendation and increased its third quarter earnings forecast by nearly 40 percent, the research house said on Friday.
"We now expect AU Optronics to post a net profit of NT$21 billion and an earning per share of NT$2.77 vs. NT$0.78 in the second quarter," it said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last