Unimicron Technology Corp (欣興電子), a Taoyuan-based printed circuit board (PCB) maker, swung to an aftertax profit of NT$1.05 billion (US$32 million), or NT$0.96 in earnings per share, in the second quarter on rising demand, the company told investors yesterday.
Unimicron posted a loss of NT$15 million in the first quarter and NT$631 million profit a year earlier, company data showed.
Revenue in the second quarter reached NT$10.57 billion, up from NT$5.26 billion in the first quarter but down from NT$9.54 billion for the same period last year, the firm said in a statement.
Unimicron’s factory utilization reached nearly 90 percent in the second quarter because of strong demand in both integrated circuit carriers and PCB applications for various consumer electronics.
But the company remained cautious about its business outlook for this quarter as industry visibility is pretty low and demand for boards used in mobile phones and Internet communications remain weak, despite strong demand in high density interconnect PCBs.
“We expect only a lukewarm outlook for the third quarter ... and are conservative about the fourth-quarter prospects,” local cable TV station USTV quoted company spokesman Shen Tsai-shen (沈再生) as saying yesterday.
As for the expected synergy of its acquisition of local rival Phoenix Precision Technology Corp (全懋精密) announced in March, Shen said the company expected to complete the integration in December and had seen positive developments in joint material procurement recently.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained