Beefing up its competitiveness in the tablet PC chase, Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world’s second-largest portable PC contract maker by revenue, yesterday said it would invest NT$2 billion (US$68 million) in subsidiary Henghao Technology Co (恆顥科技).
“The ‘media pad’ demand will report strong growth in the coming years. Investing in touch panel production can shorten such product design cycles and enhance product competitiveness,” Compal said in a statement.
The total investment amount to Henghao will be NT$2 billion through installments, it said.
Of that, NT$1.4 billion is earmarked for the purchase of a so-called 4.5-generation color-filter facility and related equipment from Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管).
Henghao is Compal’s new wholly-owned subsidiary that was set up this month to engage in the glass-type projected capacitive touch-panel business.
Henghao’s production lines are expected to begin mass production by the second quarter next year at the earliest.
Compal said the initial output would be 70,000 sheets per month, which will be supplied mainly to Compal.
In addition to the touch panel foray, Compal and Sitronix Technology Co (矽創電子) will establish a joint venture to design touch controller ICs specifically for use in tablets, the Chinese-language DigiTimes reported early this month.
Compal will invest more than NT$40 million for a stake of less than 50 percent in the venture. Sitronix, a developer of touch controller ICs for handsets, will be the main operating entity, Compal spokesman Gary Lu (呂清雄) was quoted as saying.
The investment comes in the wake of tablets’ global market potential, which is expected to take off next year, Lu said.
Among Taiwanese notebook contract manufacturers, Compal has led in developing touch controller solutions and has been cooperating with several PC brands, including Acer Inc (宏碁), Toshiba Corp and Dell Inc, to develop tablet PCs, DigiTimes said.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
In the wake of strong global demand for AI applications, Taiwan’s export-oriented economy accelerated with the composite index of economic indicators flashing the first “red” light in December for one year, indicating the economy is in booming mode, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Moreover, the index of leading indicators, which gauges the potential state of the economy over the next six months, also moved higher in December amid growing optimism over the outlook, the NDC said. In December, the index of economic indicators rose one point from a month earlier to 38, at the lower end of the “red” light.
RSS