Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s biggest electronics manufacturing service provider, maintained its top spot on the annual Fortune 500 list of the largest Taiwanese companies in terms of revenue, according to the new issue of Fortune magazine due out on July 25.
The results, reported by CNN Money on its Web site yesterday, showed Hon Hai as having reported revenue of US$95.19 billion last year, 60.46 percent higher than the previous year. That helped boost the company’s ranking on this year’s Fortune 500 list to No. 60 from No. 112 last year.
A total of eight Taiwanese companies made it into the Fortune 500 list this year, the same as last year.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world’s largest notebook computer maker, switched places with Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s largest life insurer, to become the second-largest Taiwanese company on the list, the magazine’s poll showed.
Quanta recorded revenue of US$35.72 billion last year and was ranked 246 in the Fortune 500 this year, up from 327 last year. Cathay Life reported revenue of US$34.8 billion with a global ranking of 258 this year, compared with 281st last year, according to the poll.
Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world’s second-largest contract notebook computer maker, state-run refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only publicly traded oil refiner, remained Taiwan’s fourth, fifth and sixth-largest companies respectively. They were ranked 339th, 349th and 409th in the Fortune 500 this year.
The nation’s leading PC brand Acer Inc (宏碁電腦) saw its global ranking rise one notch to No. 486 this year, the seventh-largest among its local peers on the list, with revenue of US$19.98 billion, the poll showed.
It was followed by Wistron Corp (緯創資通) — the world’s third-largest contract notebook PC maker and a contract manufacturing spin-off from Acer — which was ranked No. 499 on the list with revenue of US$19.54 billion. However, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), the world’s No. 6 PC brand, dropped out of the Fortune 500 list this year. It ranked 465th last year.
Globally, the US has the most companies on the list this year, with 133, followed by 68 from Japan and 61 from China.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world’s largest retailer, remained the world’s largest company, with revenue of US$421.85 billion. It was followed by Royal Dutch Shell PLC with US$378.15 billion and Exxon Mobil Corp with US$354.67 billion, according to the poll.
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