G-Tech Optoelectronics Corp (正達國際), which supplies cover glass used in touch displays for Apple’s iPad tablet series, yesterday said revenue would grow by a double-digit percentage this quarter, driven by customer demand for laptops running the new Windows 8 operating system and by associated demand for G-Tech’s new coating glass.
G-Tech, based in Miaoli County, made NT$2.35 billion (US$80.3 million) in revenue last quarter, up 26 percent from the second quarter, with 45 percent of its revenue generating from cover glass.
Despite recent reports about a less-than-vigorous uptake of computers running Windows 8, G-Tech spokesman Tony Chiu (邱火生) said “customer demand still looks OK so far.”
Robust demand pushed the company’s revenue to a historic high again last month at NT$1.36 billion, after a record-breaking September.
As customers usually place orders one month, or one-and-half months ahead of their product launch time, end demand for Windows 8 computers is still unclear, Chiu said.
“We will monitor the sell-through of those products during the Christmas holidays,” he said.
G-Tech is 42 percent owned by the Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團), which has Apple products assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密) as its flagship company.
This quarter, Chiu said G-Tech’s new coating glass would be another growth driver as the company’s major customer is scheduled to launch a new product by the end of the year.
The coating-glass business skyrocketed last quarter to make up 41 percent of the company’s revenue, compared with 8 percent in the second quarter, thanks to a new product launched by its biggest customer.
In general, “the fourth quarter will be a better period than the third quarter,” Chiu said.
The company’s factories are 90 percent utilized at the moment, after an unspecified period of supply constraint, he said.
G-Tech plans to keep capital spending little changed next year, compared with this year’s level of between NT$3.5 billion and NT$4 billion, Chiu said, citing concern that a weak global economy could still suppress consumer electronics spending.
G-Tech shares fell 1.03 percent yesterday to NT$76.5, performing worse than the TAIEX, which lost 0.19 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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained