Network-equipment maker Accton Technology Corp (智邦科技) yesterday announced it planned to form a joint venture with Vietnam’s largest mobile phone operator.
Following a board meeting held yesterday, the Hsinchu-based maker of computer networking devices said it would establish the venture with Vietnam Military Telecommunications Corp, or Viettel, with registered capital of US$30 million.
According to Accton’s stock exchange filing released after the local stock market closed yesterday, the two companies hope the new venture can help them “meet market demand and enhance operational efficiency.”
The venture, which is expected to be formed in Hanoi by the end of next month, will also allow the two companies to access other emerging markets in Southeast Asia, like Cambodia.
The filing did not, however, disclose the share each side is likely to own in the new venture.
Shares of Accton dropped 0.6 percent to NT$15.4 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. The stock has fallen 0.96 in the first three trading sessions of the new year, compared with an increase of 1.7 percent on the benchmark TAIEX.
Accton is investing in a market where the economy has expanded swiftly in recent years, while the country’s stock market surged around 57 percent last year.
Vietnam’s GDP grew 6.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.
The country also has a revised 6.04 percent gain in the previous quarter, according to the latest statistics released by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam on Dec. 31.
Last year, the country posted an increase of 5.32 percent in GDP, after it grew 6.18 percent in 2008, according to information posted by the national statistics office on its Web site.
Accton is not the first Taiwanese company to form a partnership with the Vietnamese telecom operator.
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), the nation’s top phone company, formed a US$30 million joint venture with Viettel in 2008 to provide Internet data center services in Hanoi.
Chunghwa Telecom holds a 30 percent stake in Viettel-CHT Co Ltd, which provides broadband leasing and Web hosting services in Hanoi, while Viettel controls the remaining 70 percent.
Also yesterday, Accton posted its latest sales figure for last month.
Sales grew 38.9 percent to NT$1.812 billion (US$57 million) from NT$1.305 billion a year earlier, and the figure represented a 20.2 percent rise from NT$1.508 billion in the previous month, the company’s tallies showed.
For all of last year, however, revenue dropped 5.2 percent to NT$14.356 billion because of the global economic slowdown.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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