Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus models, yesterday raised its sales target for Lexus models this year to 10,500 units from 10,000 units following significant growth in the premium car market in Taiwan.
“The market share of premium cars almost doubled this year from 7 percent to 8 percent four to five years ago,” Hotai president Justin Su (蘇純興) said.
Sales of luxury cars rose 10.2 percent year-on-year to 43,235 units during the first 10 months this year, with Hotai trailing behind Mercedes-Benz Taiwan and BMW Taiwan as the third-largest premium car distributor with a 19.9 percent market share. The company distributed 8,603 Lexus models in the period, up 7.1 percent from a year ago.
Cars priced below NT$2 million (US$68,000) accounted for 50 percent of Lexus models sold this year, slightly higher than last year because Hotai upgraded its Lexus ES and IS series cars earlier this year, and the LS and GS models more recently, the company said.
Hotai yesterday launched its Lexus GS 300h hybrid sedan, priced between NT$2.09 million and NT$2.49 million. The company aims to sell 1,000 units of the new model, which is powered by a 2.5-liter four-cylinder gasoline engine aided by an electric motor to produce 217 horsepower with a maximum torque of 22.5 kilogram-meter.
The company said it had received orders for 50 Lexus GS 300h as of yesterday, adding that it plans to sell 200 more before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Su said overall car sales in Taiwan this year will rise above 370,000 units after positive customer responses to new cars launched by Hotai and Yulon Nissan Co (裕隆日產) last month. Total car sales rose 0.7 percent year-on-year to 304,749 cars from January through last month, data showed.
“We are surprised about the sales numbers in recent months,” Su said, adding that he is confident of reaching a sales target of 12,500 new Altis sedans this year.
Hotai received 6,000 Altis orders last month and aims to sell 4,000 more units this month, he said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained