China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday posted a 1 percent decline in pretax profits because of decreased investment income from subsidiaries.
Pre-tax profits shrank to NT$1.76 billion (US$59.47 million) last month, compared with NT$1.83 billion in July, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The figure was more than double the NT$712 million in pre-tax profit it made in August last year on a unconsolidated basis, according to a separate filing by the company.
However, operating profit soared 20 percent to NT$1.98 billion last month, from NT$1.65 billion in July, because of a decline in raw material costs, China Steel said.
“We started using lower-priced coal we purchased in the second quarter,” China Steel vice president Steve Lee (李慶超) said by telephone yesterday.
Last month, the company registered revenue of NT$29.1 billion, up 2.9 percent from NT$28.29 billion a year ago and down 1.19 percent from NT$29.45 billion a month ago, according to the filing.
Lee attributed higher revenue last month to an increase in shipments to 754,067 tonnes last month, from 716,000 tonnes in the same month of last year.
The shipment growth offset a decline in average steel price last month to NT$2,000 per tonne, he said.
From January through last month, the company posted revenue of NT$231.71 billion, down 7.17 percent from the NT$249.59 billion posted a year earlier, the filing said.
Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) forecast China Steel would post a 30.2 percent quarter-on-quarter decline in net profit to NT$3.41 billion this quarter, from NT$4.42 billion last quarter because of rising prices of iron ores, according to its report issued yesterday.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure