Wintek monthly revenue dips
Wintek Corp (勝華), which supplies touchpanels for Xiaomi Corp (小米) smartphones as well as for Amazon Inc and Google Inc tablets, yesterday said revenue fell 15.71 percent to NT$5.52 billion (US$18.43 million) last month, compared with July’s NT$6.54 billion.
August revenue hit the lowest level since February this year. On an annual basis, Wintek’s revenue shrank 3.2 percent from NT$5.7 billion.
In the first eight months of the year, Wintek reported consolidated sales of NT$49.18 billion, up 3.8 percent from NT$47.37 billion for the same period of last year.
Ichia low-key on client delays
Handset keypad maker Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉科技) on Monday reported a lower-than-expected revenue for last month, as consumer electronics-related product shipments were pushed back this quarter due to major clients’ product launch delays.
Consolidated revenue was NT$826 million last month, down 19 percent from August and 1.49 percent from the same month last year, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
For the first eight months, the company’s consolidated revenue totaled NT$7.797 billion, up 30.51 percent year-on-year.
First Capital Management Inc (第一金證券投顧) forecast that the company would see revenue grow by 20.6 percent annually to NT$11.5 billion this year.
Solartech brightens in rebound
Solar cell maker Solartech Energy Corp (昇陽科技) yesterday said sales last month rose 19.84 percent from a month earlier and 6.09 percent from a year earlier to NT$690 million.
Last month’s increase followed a 30 percent monthly decline seen in July due to market worries over US antidumping tariffs on Taiwanese solar cell and solar panel makers. In the first eight months of the year, Solartech’s consolidated sales totaled NT$6.61 billion, up 65.47 percent from a year earlier.
Solartech said last month’s results showed that customers were willing to buy Taiwan’s solar energy products as the antidumping tariff impact began to fade, adding that the company’s sales could continue rising this month as production capacity for the month could exceed utilization rates of 90 percent.
Ghost Month wrecks car sales
New car sales rose 8.79 percent last month from a year earlier to 23,181 vehicles, but the figure was down 48.65 percent from July, according to the latest statistics compiled by Chunghwa Telecom Co’s (中華電信) data communication branch.
The monthly decline was attributed to the avoidance of major purchases by Taiwanese consumers during Ghost Month — the seventh month on the lunar calendar, which lasted from July 27 to Aug. 24 this year — to avoid bad luck.
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), the local sales agent for Toyota Motor Corp, remained the top vendor domestically, selling 6,187 units last month for a 26.7 percent market share, the data showed.
Invention show nears: TAITRA
The Taipei International Invention Show and Technomart, the largest invention show in Asia, is set to be held at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall from Sept. 18 until Sept. 21.
About 600 exhibitors from 15 countries are expected to attend this year’s event, which is likely to attract an estimated 100,000 domestic and foreign potential buyers, according to the Taiwan External Trade Development Council.
This year, the event is to include two major exhibition areas: One for innovative products from an invention contest and one for technology trade and exchange, the council said.
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