Revenue at the nation’s two largest airlines rose last month from February amid improving demand on both passenger and cargo sectors.
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), the nation’s largest air carrier, yesterday reported NT$11.1 billion (US$375.38 million) in revenue last month, up 15.38 percent from a month earlier, data provided by the company showed.
Revenue from the passenger business increased 10.28 percent from a month earlier to NT$6.76 billion, while cargo sales climbed 25.96 percent month-on-month to NT$3.93 billion, both helping drive up CAL’s overall revenue for last month.
On an annual basis, passenger sales rose 11.55 percent for last month, with revenue from the cargo sector down 17.95 percent, leading overall revenue to drop 1.65 percent compared with March last year, company statistics showed.
EVA AIRWAYS
Compared with CAL, the revenue of EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空), the nation’s second-largest air carrier, grew stronger last month.
The airline posted NT$8.89 billion in revenue for last month, up 17.44 percent from a month ago and 5.63 percent from a year earlier, according to financial data released on Monday.
Revenue from the passenger business totaled NT$5.07 billion last month, up 11.43 percent and 13.17 percent from a month and a year earlier respectively.
In addition, cargo sales climbed 29.2 percent month-on-month to NT$3.23 billion, which was 5.83 percent lower than those recorded in March last year.
The airlines’ month-on-month increase for cargo sales last month was in line with EVA president Chang Kuo-wei’s (張國煒) expectations.
Chang said last month that the company had begun to experience a slight rebound in the cargo sector since the beginning of last month, with the launch of Apple Inc’s new iPad driving up demand.
However, Chang said he did not expect the company to earn a profit in the first quarter, because of weak cargo demand in the first two months of the year.
For the first quarter, EVA’s revenue totaled NT$25.57 billion, up 5.71 percent from a year earlier and 2.36 percent from a month earlier, company data showed.
However, CAL reported a 4.27 percent quarter-on-quarter decrease in revenue during the January-to-March period amid weaker cargo business. Its sales grew 1.69 percent from a year ago to NT$32.08 billion in the first quarter.
TRANSASIA AIRWAYS
Compared with the two bigger airlines, TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空) posted a higher growth level in first-quarter revenue, as the company focused only on passenger business, a relatively strong sector during the period.
Revenue for TransAsia totaled NT$2.18 billion, up 12.65 percent from a year earlier and 6.86 percent from a quarter earlier, company statistics showed.
High aviation fuel prices may raise carriers’ operating costs and strike down their profitability in the first half of the year, Capital Securities Corp (群益證券) said in a research report yesterday.
Currently, Taiwanese air carriers are able to impose a bunker surcharge on passengers, but the level of surcharge could only make up for 50 percent of the company’s rising costs, which means airlines still have to digest the other half.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to