Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s biggest solar wafer maker, plunged to a loss of NT$2.33 billion last year from a net profit of NT$1.72 billion in 2010, as shrinking demand cut prices, the company said in a statement.
Gross margin fell to minus 4.16 percent last year, from 16.6 percent in 2010, while revenue dropped 5.35 percent year-on-year to NT$18.11 billion, from NT$17.19 billion, it said.
This quarter, Green Energy said costs would improve substantially as it has used all of the polysilicon it had bought at higher prices and it has also been cutting 15 percent quarter-on-quarter from costs of other materials.
The price of polysilicon wafers dropped 0.26 percent this week to US$1.161 per unit from last week, according to a report released by Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) yesterday.
Green Energy said its board had approved a plan to raise NT$1.55 billion by issuing 50 million shares at NT$31 each. The company plans to use the proceeds to repay bank loans.
The share offering would be sold to overseas investors in the form of global depositary receipts, by issuing corporate bonds or an issue of new common shares, the company said.
The board also decided not to issue a dividend this year after the company drifted into the red.
The company is scheduled to hold an annual shareholders’ meeting on June 29 to approve the company’s financial results and its dividend plan.
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