MANUFACTURERS
HTC reports revenue drop
Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday reported worse-than-expected consolidated revenue for last month after two consecutive months of gains. Consolidated revenue was NT$21.1 billion (US$711 million) last month, down 4.6 percent from April and down 27.37 percent from a year ago, HTC said in a statement. Total revenue for the first five months of the year reached NT$76.3 billion, down 16.54 percent from the previous year, the company said. HTC has projected that its second-quarter consolidated revenue will be between NT$65 billion and NT$70 billion, a target that will require revenue this month of NT$21.8 billion.
AVIATION
Cargo to bring profit: CAL
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said yesterday that its slowly recovering cargo business will help the company turn to profit this year, as global market demand for air cargo might have bottomed out late last year. “It is somewhat challenging [to be profitable], but we are sparing no efforts to meet this goal,” CAL chairman Sun Huang-hsiang (孫洪祥) said on the sidelines of the annual International Air Transport Association (IATA) meeting in Doha. According to IATA research, carriers in the Asia Pacific region are more likely to see moderately stronger cargo markets this year, which could help boost collective net profits to US$3.2 billion, up US$1.2 billion from last year.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured