Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密), which makes iPhones and iPads for Apple Inc, claimed the 43rd spot on the newly released Global Fortune 500 list, while archrival Samsung Electronics Co of South Korea was in 20th place.
Hon Hai’s revenues last year totaled US$117,514 million, up 23.5 percent from a year earlier, while its net profit reached US$2,777 million, according to Fortune magazine, which releases an annual ranking of the top 500 companies in the world.
Samsung’s revenues last year totaled US$148,944 million, an 11.3 percent annual increase, but its net profit was down 11.8 percent at US$12,059 million, according to the list.
Hon Hai CEO Terry Gou (郭台銘) views Samsung Electronics as a top rival and has said he would use Hon Hai’s joint-venture deal with Sharp Corp of Japan to challenge Samsung in the display market in three to five years.
Besides Hon Hai, five other Taiwanese companies made it to the global 500 list. They were Quanta Computer (廣達電腦) at 279th; CPC Corp, Taiwan (中油) at 337th; Formosa Petrochemical (台塑石化) at 408th; Compal Electronics (仁寶電腦) at 468th; and Wistron Corp (緯創) at 493rd.
Meanwhile, the top three Asian companies on the list were all Chinese companies: Sinopec Group (中國石化集團), China National Petroleum (中國石油天然氣) and State Grid (國家電網).
At the top of the Global Fortune 500 list was the Netherlands-based oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell, with a net profit of US$30,918 million last year, up 53.6 percent from a year earlier. Former world No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores was listed at No. 3.
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],”
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
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