Tax break for pay hike
The legislature’s Economics Committee yesterday approved a proposed amendment that would grant favorable tax treatment to small and medium-sized enterprises that give their employees pay increases. The proposal has been forwarded to a cross-caucus meeting for further negotiation.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said it initiated the proposal to encourage companies to increase employee wages.
The amendment says that when economic indicators reach a certain level, companies that raise the salaries of their non-managerial employees can add another 30 percent of the increase to their corporate tax deductibles for the year.
TPK sales beat forecast
Touchpanel maker TPK Holding Co Ltd (宸鴻) yesterday reported that revenue increased 8.5 percent to NT$11.44 billion (U$32.78 million) last month from NT$10.54 billion in August.
That brought the company’s revenue last quarter to NT$32.61 billion, up 6.22 percent from NT$30.7 billion in the second quarter.
The revenue growth beat TPK’s own forecast in July.
TPK financial officer Freddie Liu (劉詩亮) told investors at the time that revenue would be flat, or grow 5 percent sequentially last quarter.
SerComm posts record sales
Local telecommunications equipment maker SerComm Corp (中磊電子) yesterday reported that revenue grew 32 percent year-on-year to NT$2.09 billion last month.
That brought the company’s revenue last quarter to NT$6.15 billion, setting an all-time high again. Sales last quarter grew 21 percent from NT$5.07 billion a year ago and 21.6 percent from NT$6.02 billion in the second quarter.
The company expects its business to grow further for the remainder of the year, driven by rising demand for smart-home automation systems, the Internet of Things, 4G long-term evolution (LTE) equipment and 4G small cells.
Neo Solar sales given boost
Neo Solar Power Corp (新日光), the nation’s largest solar cell maker, yesterday said revenue increased 4.96 percent last month to NT$1.96 billion from NT$1.87 billion in August.
The company said the growth was fueled by rising demand and an uptick in solar cell prices.
It expects recovering demand to boost factory utilization and solar cell prices further this quarter.
Lextar reports sales drop
Lextar Electronics Corp (隆達電子), which manufactures upstream LED chips and provides downstream packaging services, yesterday reported NT$1.33 billion in revenue for last month, down 5.6 percent from August’s NT$1.41 billion.
However, the figure represented a 17.5 percent increase compared with NT$1.11 billion in the same month last year.
Consolidated revenue from July to last month rose 9 percent to NT$4.15 billion, from the second quarter’s NT$3.78 billion.
CPT revenue slips 4.2%
Flat-panel maker Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (CPT, 中華映管) yesterday posted a 4.2 percent decline in revenue to NT$4.37 billion for last month, from NT$4.56 billion in August.
Last month’s revenue also represented a 12.9 percent contraction from the NT$5.2 billion made in the same month last year.
Chunghwa Picture’s consolidated revenue last quarter dropped 2.3 percent annually to NT$42.19 billion.
The company said in a statement that shipments of large-sized panels rose 3.1 percent to 135,000 units last month from August. Shipments of small and middle-sized panels declined 4.7 percent month-on-month to 36.66 million units last month.
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