Formosa Plastics posts first loss
Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), the world’s second-biggest maker of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, posted its first quarterly loss in seven years as product prices declined because of the global recession.
The company swung to a loss of NT$14.6 billion (US$427 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31 from a profit of NT$11 billion a year earlier, Bloomberg News calculations showed, based on the company’s full-year results in a stock exchange filing yesterday.
Formosa Plastics, whose full-year profit fell 59 percent to NT$19.7 billion, plans to pay a cash dividend of NT$1.80 per share on its earnings from last year, together with a stock dividend of seven shares for every 100 shares held by investors. That compares with an all-cash payout of NT$6.7 a share a year earlier.
Formosa Plastics plans to sell NT$10 billion in bonds to repay short-term debt, the company said in a separate stock exchange filing yesterday.
Sogo to open Tianmu outlet
Pacific Sogo Department Stores Co (太平洋崇光百貨) is scheduled to open its Tianmu outlet on May 23 and aimed to generate revenue of NT$4.5 billion (US$131 million) in the first year, reports said yesterday.
Pacific Sogo will become the third department store to enter the Tianmu area, after Dayeh Takashimaya Department Store (大葉高島屋) and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store (新光三越).
Dayeh Takashimaya’s annual revenue is around NT$6 billion, and Shin Kong Mitsukoshi made NT$2.5 billion in sales last year, reports said. With the addition of Pacific Sogo, the three department stores are expected to generate revenues over NT$12 billion a year, the report said.
The Pacific Sogo Tianmu building will have eight floors above ground and four basement floors.
FSC approves Sony office
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said it allowed Japan’s Sony Life Insurance Co, a unit of Sony Corp, to open a representative office in Taiwan, a commission statement said yesterday.
The insurance unit has capital of ¥70 billion (US$708 million) and a total assets of ¥3.78 trillion, the statement said.
The regulator’s approval will bring the number of foreign insurance companies that have set up representative offices in Taiwan to 14, the statement said.
LG procured US$1.5bn in 2008
LG Electronics Inc, South Korea’s second-largest electronics maker, procured products worth US$1.5 billion from Taiwan last year, with panel procurement accounting for US$1 billion, a company official said yesterday.
LG Electronics Taiwan chief Baek Myeong-won said the company would retain its budget for panel procurement at US$1 billion this year, adding that LG would purchase between 300,000 and 500,000 panels a month, with half from AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) and half from Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子).
IBM loses bid to ban Asustek
International Business Machines Corp (IBM) lost a ruling in its bid to ban US imports of computers, motherboards and graphics cards made by Asustek Computer Inc (華碩).
US International Trade Commission Judge Theodore Essex found that Asustek didn’t infringe on three patents owned by IBM, the world’s biggest computer-services provider. IBM said it would likely ask the full six-member commission in Washington to review the judge’s findings.
IBM had claimed that Asustek is using its patented technology for improved power supplies to computers, a cooling system and a way of clustering computers together so they operate as a single unit.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”