Largan Precision Co (大立光), the nation’s leading maker of handset lenses, yesterday said consolidated revenue reached a record high of NT$1.34 billion (US$46.9 million) last month, up 2.52 percent from the previous month on rising demand for smartphones.
Last month’s consolidated sales were 52.27 percent higher than a year earlier, according to the company’s Web site.
In the first four months of this year, consolidated revenue totaled NT$4.85 billion, up 55.95 percent from NT$3.11 billion in the same period last year.
The Taichung-based company — whose customers include HTC Corp (宏達電), Apple Inc and Motorola Inc — said last month it was optimistic about second-quarter sales on increasing shipments and less fluctuations in the New Taiwan dollar.
However, smaller rival Kinko Optical Co (今國光), a supplier of glass-lens kits for use in Canon digital cameras including digital single lens reflex models, saw its consolidated revenue fall 0.69 percent month-on-month to NT$419.4 million last month, down 9.48 percent year-on-year.
In the first four months, accumulated revenue reached NT$1.62 billion, up 18.24 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a stock exchange filing yesterday.
Largan shares rose 2.08 percent to NT$933 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, while Kinko rose 3.58 percent to NT$42.
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],”
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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