Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), the nation’s biggest solar cell maker, said it had terminated long-term supply contracts of silicon wafer with an unnamed foreign company because of a change in market conditions, according to a stock exchange filing yesterday.
Motech, in which the world’s largest foundry operator, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), owns a 20 percent stake, said it would renegotiate terms, including product quantities and prices with the foreign company, which was not named in the filing because of contract agreements.
The filing did not say when the unnamed foreign manufacturer would again start supplying wafers to the Greater Tainan-based Motech.
During the boom period a few years ago, solar cell manufacturers often signed long-term contracts with upstream polysilicon and silicon wafer firms to secure a stable supply of the key raw materials and avoid possible shortages.
However, since the industry hit a downturn in the past one to two years because of an industry-wide glut and weak market demand, spot market prices were well below the prices agreed in the long-term contracts and it became in downstream companies’ best interests to make contractual adjustments with suppliers.
Motech said in the filing that the company had included the write-off of losses incurred from its long-term material supply contracts in last year’s financial report, based on generally accepted accounting principles.
“As for the company’s decision to renegotiate terms and prices with the customer this time, the company will book the financial discrepancy from previous estimates in this quarter’s financial report,” Motech said. “The termination of the contracts is not expected to have a significant impact on the company’s finance and business.”
Motech’s consolidated revenue dropped 4.01 percent to NT$1.58 billion (US$52.7 million) last month due to falling average selling prices, ending four consecutive months of rises.
Last month’s figures were down 26.51 percent from a year earlier.
In the first five months, revenue totaled NT$7.11 billion, down 50.14 percent year-on-year, company data showed.
Motech’s latest deal came after the company announced late last month that it was disposing of its loss-making US polysilicon manufacturing unit, AE Polysilicon Corp.
The company’s shares closed down 0.12 percent at NT$41 yesterday on the GRETAI Securities Market.
So far this year, the stock has declined 22.79 percent, compared with the over-the-counter market index’s increase of 11.98 percent.
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