Adobe reports 30% growth
Adobe Systems (奧多比) yesterday said that its annual revenues saw year-on-year growth of 30 percent from one year earlier to reach US$3 billion last year.
Its product Creative Suite was the major revenue-generator last year, said the company's country manager in Hong Kong and Taiwan, Ng Yew Hwee (黃耀輝), at a media briefing yesterday in Taipei.
Ng further expressed Adobe's interest in Taiwan market, planning to team up with Chung Hwa Telecom (中華電信) and launch its flash cast services to local users in the coming year.
"Very soon, we will launch the services to Taiwan," Ng said, refusing to reveal the actual timetable.
Taiwan, however, will be the second Asian country, following Japan, for mobile phone subscribers to enjoy the platform services, on which flash images can be delivered.
Railway upgrade approved
The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) yesterday approved a NT$15 billion budget to upgrade 155.46km of railway between Hualien and Taitung from a system operated for locomotives powered by diesel to one powered by electricity.
The project, proposed by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC), will take seven years to complete the construction.
The MOTC said construction will begin around the end of this year, and will be completed in 2014. It will save passengers about 30 minutes traveling from Taipei to Taitung.
The CEPD estimated the economic benefit of the project at NT$18 billion. As the project will straighten a minor part of the eastern coast railway, NT$250 million has been allocated for acquisition of land and compensation for relocating residents, MOTC officials said.
FAT requests fee delay
The debt-ridden Far Eastern Air Transport (FAT, 遠航) yesterday requested to extend its overdue NT$44 million departure and landing payments to the Civil Aeronautic Administration (CAA), a CAA official said.
The CAA is expected to deliver the FAT a written request today, urging the airliner to come up with a repayment plan.
The CAA and creditors had long been urging the FAT to do so and reveal its actual losses.
In response, the airliner yesterday said that it will cooperate with creditor banks by providing its financial report for the fourth quarter last year, but with a string attached -- they have to guarantee that no information will be leaked to any "outsider."
The airliner also invited certified accountants to help it handle the financial crisis, and plans to swap shares with debt holdings.
Women show business interest
Three-fourths of the nation's women are interested in starting up their own businesses, but the majority of them lack capital, a 1111 Job Bank's online survey found yesterday.
Restaurants, clothing and shoes, tourism and leisure are the top three industries favored by start-up businesswomen, the survey showed, adding 75 percent of polled women preferred entrepreneurship through franchise systems.
However, Beryl Lee (李培芬), general secretary of the Taiwan Association of Chain and Franchise Promotion (台灣連鎖加盟促進協會), warned that the chance for independent micro businesses to survive after three years drops to only 20 percent, compared with that of franchise businesses' 80 percent.
NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday weakened by NT$0.006 to trade at NT$31.746 against the greenback on turnover of US$778 million.
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day