Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC, 台塑), the flagship unit of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團), yesterday posted a sequential double-digit revenue increase for last quarter as demand increased following the turnover in the Chinese Communist Party leadership near the end of last year.
The company, the nation’s largest producer of polyvinyl chloride, said revenue rose 21.13 percent to NT$56.29 billion (US$1.87 billion) last quarter from NT$46.47 billion a year ago, up 12.49 percent as well from the NT$50.04 billion it posted the previous quarter.
A company official, who declined to be named, attributed the double-digit year-on-year increase to a low base of comparison for last year, when the company was instructed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs to conduct safety inspections at its factories.
“Regarding the quarter-on-quarter increase, it occurred because our Chinese clients were waiting for the leadership transition in China to complete before they placed their orders,” the official said by telephone.
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), the nation’s largest plastics maker and another FPG unit, reported revenue of NT$74.03 billion for last quarter, compared with NT$74.2 billion a year ago and NT$74.27 billion a quarter ago, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
“Demand for electronics components in China was weaker in the first half of the year, leading to an annual decline [in revenue],” Nan Ya chairman Wu Chia-chau (吳嘉昭) said yesterday.
Wu said sales of electronics components are likely to be better in the second half of this year as Christmas approaches and companies ramp up production.
Meanwhile, Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only listed oil refiner, said its revenue fell 2.98 percent to NT$200.48 billion last quarter from NT$206.46 billion a year ago and 19.1 percent lower than the NT$247.82 billion it posted the previous quarter.
Company spokesman Lin Keh-yen (林克彥) attributed the declines to annual maintenance from March to last month and the recent drop in global oil prices, adding that the company’s outlook remains bleak.
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