Local solar wafer maker Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (SAS, 中美晶) expects the EU’s anti-dumping investigation into Chinese solar companies to exacerbate the outlook of the already gloomy solar industry in the upcoming year, a company executive said yesterday.
The downbeat prospects contrasted with the optimism of local peer Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), which said on Tuesday that the solar industry might see some light at the end of the tunnel next month after clients finish their digestion of excessive inventory and begin placing orders again.
“In my view, the cloud is still there. The industry will remain in the dark over the upcoming half year, or one year. This will be a period of landscape shuffle,” SAS chairman and chief executive official Lu Ming-kuang (盧明光) told reporters after giving his speech during a forum on mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector.
Because the EU is expected to unveil its initial ruling within six months at the earliest after the probe began early this month, most solar companies were dumping their goods this month and next month to avoid paying tariffs for a nine-month retrospective period, Lu said.
The prices for polysilicon solar wafers slid 0.42 percent to US$0.954 per unit on average this month from last month as solar companies took a wait-and-see attitude because of EU anti-dumping probes and the upcoming week-long holiday, beginning on Oct. 1, in China, the latest pricing information from market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) showed.
Prices for polysilicon solar cells declined 2.34 percent to US$1.702 per unit
Despite the industrial slump, SAS will not scale back its research and development spending, Lu said.
Over the past six years, SAS has spent more than NT$400 million (US$13.6 million) on R&D programs, he said.
SAS’ new product validated the company’s efforts, he said. SAS’ new wafer won the company a Solar Industry Award on Tuesday for its new wafer with a high conversion efficiency of 18 percent, surpassing the 17 percent average for similar products on the market.
During his speech, Lu said mergers and acquisitions were a faster and more effective approach to boost revenues and to expand company scale.
SAS expected revenues from its foundry-business unit, GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), to soar to NT$20 billion next year after acquiring Japanese company Covalent Materials Corp for ¥28 billion (US$360.3 million) early this year, Lu said. SAS also obtained 350 patents via the acquisition.
In 1998, SAS generated only NT$500 million from its foundry business, he said.
Global mergers-and-acquisitions deal value in the technology sector grew 33 percent to US$33.4 billion in the second quarter of this year, from last quarter’s US$25.09 billion, according to the statistics from Ernst & Young.
In Asia, mergers-and-acquisitions deal value also expanded 25 percent to US$2.6 billion, according to the tally from Ernst & Young released last month.
That indicated that Asian companies have been aggressive in seeking growth from mergers and acquisitions during global economic weakness, Ernst & Young said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last