SPORTSWEAR
Munich expo sparks orders
The Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF, 台灣紡拓會) said on Friday that local sportswear manufacturers are expected to pick up about US$26 million (NT$770 million) in orders after showing their products in Munich at one of the world’s premier sporting goods fairs. The TTF said that during the four-day ISPO Munich event, which ended on Wednesday, the Taiwan pavilion operated by the federation attracted about 2,200 foreign visitors, and Taiwanese companies received about US$3 million in orders on the spot. After follow-up communications, the show will likely end up generating US$26 million in orders, as many buyers from Eastern Europe also expressed interest in Taiwan’s sportswear, according to the TTF.
AUTOMAKERS
Renault issues China recall
French carmaker Renault has started recalling over 60,000 cars exported to China due to problems with their fuel level sensors, state news agency Xinhua quoted the Chinese consumer watchdog as saying. Renault’s China unit this week started recalling 61,508 Koleos sport utility vehicles produced between Dec. 16, 2008 and July 10 last year, Xinhua quoted the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine as saying on Saturday. The cars have faulty fuel level sensors that display incorrect fuel levels on their dashboards, the watchdog said. Renault will change the sensors for free, it said. Renault’s vehicle recall was announced on Wednesday, the second in two months. The company had recalled 5,097 Koleos cars in January due to welding problems, Xinhua said.
DEBT
Turkey to repay IMF
Turkey is set to make a “clean break” with the IMF by paying off its remaining debt by May, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday. “We have been paying and paying ... Right now the debt stands at US$860 million,” Erdogan said in televised remarks. “When we pay the last slice in May, we will zero out the debt and make a clean break.” Erdogan said his Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, which took over a US$23.5 billion IMF debt when it came to power in 2002, was in talks to loan US$5 billion to the global institution. The pay-off would mean a “new era” for Turkey where taxes can be put toward expanding national infrastructure once the debt is cleared, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek was quoted as saying by Anatolia news agency.
COMPUTERS
Growth predicted for iMacs
Apple Inc will sell 2 million all-in-one iMac computers in the first quarter of the year, after the product’s sales fell below expectations in the previous quarter, Taipei-based Digitimes Research said in a recent report. “After improving the yield rate of its components, Apple’s iMac will see substantial growth in sales in the first three months,” Digitimes said. However, sales of the retina display-equipped MacBook Pro, launched in the middle of last year, are expected to be sluggish until next month, with barely over 2 million units likely to be sold in the first quarter, the researcher said. During the October-to-December period, 1.05 million iMacs and 2.4 million MacBook Pros were shipped worldwide, Digitimes said. A total of 4.9 million computers in the “Mac” series — the iMac, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, and the Macmini — were sold in the quarter, up only 1 percent from the same period a year earlier, Digitimes said.
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
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six