Shares of Cowealth Medical Holding Co (合富集團), a medical equipment provider for Chinese hospitals, surged 34.8 percent to NT$86 on its first day of trading, as the company voiced optimism about development prospects in the Chinese medical market.
“The medical insurance policies implemented in China in 2010 will sustain growth in the medical market and lend support to our business,” Cowealth president and CEO Lee Duane (李惇) said at a ceremony marking the company’s debut on the GRETAI Securities Market.
Lee said Taiwan’s medical market grew for more than 10 years after the government introduced the National Health Insurance Program. Since China’s population is significantly larger than Taiwan’s, Lee expects stronger growth in the Chinese medical market.
Lee added that Chinese insurance policies stipulate that medical treatment should follow scientific standards set by the Chinese government for the insured to receive subsidies. This has created demand for advanced diagnostic facilities and reagents, which are Cowealth’s main products, Lee said.
Since the company provides long-term service packages for its diagnostic facilities and reagents, it has established long-term relationships with Chinese hospitals, creating a steady stream of revenue for the company. Cowealth says it counts 30 Chinese hospitals among its clients.
One of the products it sells is Accuray Inc’s CyberKnife System, a radiosurgery system used for treating tumors.
Cowealth said that in addition to the US$6 million it gets from the sale of each CyberKnife unit, it generates an extra US$2.5 million to US$3.5 million for providing system repair and upgrade.
The company has sold two CyberKnife Systems this year, and at least 16 hospitals in China will be equipped with the system by the end of this year, it said.
Cowealth posted a revenue of NT$2.24 billion (US$76.98 million) last year, up 34.58 percent from NT$1.66 billion a year ago, it said in a stock exchange filing.
Lee attributed the revenue growth to China’s expanding medical market. About 70 percent of its revenue last year came from sales of diagnostic facilities and reagents, while the remaining 30 percent came from sales of CyberKnife systems.
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
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the