Auto parts maker Mobiletron Electronics Co (車王電子) expects revenue to grow in the second half of this year from NT$1.08 billion (US$37 million) in the first half primarily boosted by new orders for its power tools.
Because of the orders, revenue from power tools is expected to grow 33 percent to NT$400 million this year from last year’s NT$300 million, Mobiletron Electronics spokesperson Aggie Tsai (蔡淑貞) told reporters on Friday.
Earlier this year, the company received orders of NT$100 million from a US customer that would help it post a growth in revenue in the period from June to October, Tsai said.
Sales of power tools accounted for 20 percent of Mobiletron Electronics’ sales last year, while sales of auto parts — mainly ignition modules, rectifiers and voltage regulators — accounted for 72 percent and sales of security systems accounted for 8 percent, the company said.
Tsai said gross margin last quarter would improve from 35.45 percent in the second quarter because its factories have reached economies of scale for manufacturing power tools.
The company expects revenue to lose steam this quarter from last quarter’s NT$622.5 million as durable power tool shipments begin to drop next month.
From January through last month, the company registered revenue of NT$1.7 billion, a growth of 11.22 percent from NT$1.53 billion the previous year, according to the company’s filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
During the January-to-June period, the company’s net profit fell 20.35 percent to NT$75.88 million, from NT$91.32 million the previous year, according to Mobiletron Electronics’ financial statement filed with the stock exchange.
Tsai attributed the decline in net profit to assets the company acquired last year.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to