AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world’s third-largest flat panel maker, yesterday said it would end unpaid leave for engineers and office staff starting next month as it expects demand to recover.
AU Optronics would also stop encouraging some factory workers to take a vacation in light of its rebounding factory utilization rate, Hsiao Ya-wen (蕭雅文), a company spokesperson, said by telephone.
“We have seen utilization rebound at some factories recently and workers may not have to arrange more vacations using annual leave they have accumulated over the years,” Hsiao said.
In January, the Hsinchu-based company requested that office workers and engineers take three days of unpaid leave a month because of weak global demand for electronics.
Last week, AU Optronics chief executive Chen Lai-juh (陳來助) told reporters that factory utilization had improved to around 55 percent this quarter, the top end of an earlier projection of between 50 percent and 55 percent. Chen said rising demand for large liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels had boosted utilization.
“AU Optronics may see the utilization rate recover to more than 60 percent on average, helped primarily by China’s economic-stimulus packages, including subsidized purchases of PCs and TVs in rural areas,” said Daniel Wang (王德善), who tracks the LCD industry for Primasia Securities Co.
The utilization rate at the company’s sixth-generation plants could be the highest, benefiting from recovering demand for TVs, Wang said.
But he doubted the momentum from China would extend into the next two quarters as demand in the US and Europe remained gloomy.
Wang said an increase in orders might not be sufficient to return Taiwanese LCD makers to profitability because panel prices remained lower than most companies’ manufacturing costs.
Meanwhile, Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s second-largest LCD panel supplier, yesterday said fewer of its factory workers and engineers were on unpaid leave as the company had seen an increase in rush orders.
But the Tainan-based company did not plan to end the policy any time soon, it said. Chi Mei asked employees to take unpaid leave in November to cope with plummeting demand.
HSBC Holdings PLC is deepening its commitment to Taiwan as the economy emerges as one of the bank’s fastest-growing markets globally, driven by an artificial intelligence (AI) investment boom, expanding cross-border trade, and rising wealth creation. “The advantage that Taiwan has is a growth story linked to the semiconductor and broader AI industries, strong underlying corporate performance, and wealth creation,” said Surendra Rosha, HSBC’s co-chief executive for Asia and the Middle East, in an exclusive interview with the Taipei Times on June 2, during this year’s HSBC Taiwan Conference. That combination has helped HSBC cement its position as the most profitable international
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell sharply against the US dollar to close at its lowest level since May 22 amid a massive outflow of funds from the country because of investors panicking over global equity markets. The NT dollar ended at NT$31.580 against the US dollar, slightly lower than its close of NT$31.568 on May 22, after moving between NT$31.5 and NT$31.648 on combined turnover of US$3.062 billion on the Taipei Foreign Exchange and the Cosmos Foreign Exchange. The NT dollar received a significant hit in the morning session, slumping as much as NT$0.173 at a time when other Asian currencies
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is now ranked ninth among the world’s 100 most valuable companies after its market capitalization more than doubled over the past year, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan said in a report last month. TSMC’s market capitalization surged 101 percent year-on-year to US$1.427 trillion as of March 31, the accounting and consulting firm’s 2026 Global Top 100 Companies by Market Capitalization report said. The gain catapulted the world’s largest contract chipmaker from 12th place to ninth in the rankings, and it was the fastest-growing among the global top 10, it said. TSMC was the only Taiwanese company among the top
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported record revenue of NT$416.975 billion (US$13.17 billion) for last month, putting the world’s largest contract chipmaker on track to set a record for quarterly revenue. Last month’s figure surpassed March’s record NT$415.19 billion and represented increases of 1.5 percent from April and 30.1 percent from a year earlier. For the first five months of the year, TSMC generated NT$1.96 trillion in revenue, up 30 percent year-on-year, it said in a statement. TSMC has forecast second-quarter revenue of between US$39 billion and US$40.2 billion, representing sequential growth of about 10 percent and year-on-year growth of about
RSS