Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐), a world famous dumpling house based in Taipei, reported on Monday that its profits so far this year had fallen by almost 30 percent compared with the same period last year, and that it had suspended plans to open branches in the Philippines and Thailand as a result of the economic downturn.
Din Tai Fung, which started as an innocuous-looking shop at the intersection of Yongkang Street and Xinyi Road, specializes in small, steamed pork dumplings called xiaolongbao, but its chicken soup and other dumplings are also favorites among visitors from all over the world.
The restaurant is not only a common stop for international tourists eager to sample the treats, but is also a popular gourmet eatery among Taipei residents.
It is particularly popular among Japanese tourists, including celebrities. When Japanese pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki was in Taiwan to hold a concert at Taipei Arena last year, she invited one of Din Tai Fung’s chefs to make dumplings on the spot before the show.
Another Japanese singer, Kosuke Atari, who featured in the film Cape No. 7, also mentioned his love of Din Tai Fung’s dumplings at a promotional event for the film earlier this year.
Din Tai Fung was rated as one of the top 10 gourmet restaurants in the world by the New York Times in 1993 and has branches in many countries.
It also dispatched chefs to Britain and France last year to demonstrate their culinary skills.
Over the years, the long lines of customers waiting outside the dumpling house to try the xiaolongbao and other delicacies has become a common sight, but even this Taipei institution is feeling the pinch of a weak global economy.
“The number of customers has actually dwindled,” said Hu Huei-yi (胡慧宜), head of the restaurant’s public relations section.
“Usually the restaurant is full of customers all the time, but now there’s a noticeable difference between peak and off-peak periods,” Hu said.
But despite the drop in profits, Din Tai Fung is still a profitable enterprise, Hu said.
Hu attributed the lower earnings mainly to a decline in the number of local customers, adding that statistics had shown no significant decrease in the number of tourists from other countries.
She said the restaurant’s economic resilience was a result of its diversification of services, which now includes home delivery and take-out, and its participation in food fairs and exhibitions.
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
FORECAST: The greater computing power needed for emerging AI applications has driven higher demand for advanced semiconductors worldwide, TSMC said The government-supported Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has raised its forecast for this year’s growth in the output value of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to above 22 percent on strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications. In its latest IEK Current Quarterly Model report, the institute said the local semiconductor industry would have output of NT$6.5 trillion (US$216.6 billion) this year, up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, an upward revision from a 19.1 percent increase estimate made in May. The strong showing of the local semiconductor industry largely reflected the stronger-than-expected performance of the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing segment,
COLLABORATION: Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture would make AI data center equipment, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) would operate a US factory owned by Softbank Group Corp, setting up what is in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company’s US$500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. Softbank is acquiring Hon Hai’s electric-vehicle plant in Ohio, but the Taiwanese company would continue to run the complex after turning it into an artificial intelligence (AI) server production plant, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday. Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies would make AI data
RSS