Apparel manufacturer Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽實業) yesterday reported a 2.25 percent year-on-year decline in its pretax profit for the first four months of this year, citing lower profit margin.
From January through last month, pretax profit fell to NT$573.17 million (US$19.24 million), or NT$3.4 per share, from NT$586.37 million a year ago, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Revenue increased 3.81 percent to NT$5.65 billion in the first four months, from NT$5.44 billion in the same period of last year, the filing said.
“The rising cotton prices and higher wages in China and Southeast Asia put pressure on our profits,” Makalot public relations manager Mavis Chiu (邱美惠) said by telephone.
Chiu said the company’s sales volume for this quarter would be higher than a year ago and that the company plans to negotiate with its clients about raising prices by next month.
Meanwhile, local rival Eclat Textile Co (儒鴻) last week reported revenue of NT$4.56 billion in the first four months, up 21.67 percent from NT$3.75 billion a year ago.
Profit in the first three months was NT$591.52 million, up 0.36 percent from NT$589.42 million a quarter ago and up 53.7 percent from NT$384.84 million a year ago.
Eclat vice president Roger Lo (羅仁傑) attributed the growth to its move to develop new products and acquire new customers.
“In the fashion business, we need to develop new products constantly, which will make us more competitive than our peers,” Lo said.
Eclat’s new production lines are expected to reach full utilization by the end of next year, which will boost the company’s revenue next year, he said.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is