Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) will offer expanded services beginning on July 4, with 14 more trains per day set to commence, CEO Ou Chin-der (歐晉德) said at the company's annual shareholders meeting yesterday.
Beginning in July, service on peak travel days will be increased from 126 per day to 140, while service on off-peak days will be expanded from 114 to 128, Ou said.
One of the focal points of the shareholders meeting was the potential impact rising energy prices would have on the company’s operations.
Ou said that the increase in energy prices had affected the company as energy costs account for about 15 percent of its total costs. Nonetheless, the company remains competitive as the high-speed rail is the most energy-efficient form of transportation and still an attractive option for travelers.
The high-speed rail has yet to turn a profit since beginning operations in January last year. While revenues have improved this year, company officials said more needed to be done.
THSRC chairwoman Nita Ing (殷琪) said that revenues in the first four months of the year already reached 52 percent of last year’s total revenues.
But while year-on-year sales had improved and passenger traffic was up, the proportion of Taiwan’s population that had used the railway remained low, she said, an indication that the company needed to improve its marketing efforts to expand its customer base.
On March 31, the high-speed railway launched a promotional campaign to boost passenger volume, offering substantial discounts on weekday fares, but the benefits have been limited, Ou said.
Passenger volume had increased by 10 percent every month since the promotion began, but overall revenues had remained little changed compared with previous months, Ou said.
The company will study whether to adjust fares again after the campaign ends on June 30, he said.
Ing said that high speed railways around the world usually struggle in their first three years, weighed down by heavy interest burdens.
She said the company was currently restructuring its financing and once the process was completed — hopefully by the third quarter — THSRC’s interest costs would be lower and its balance sheet more promising.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS