Fire hits Eclat’s Vietnam factory
A fire broke out in textile maker Eclat Textile Co’s (儒鴻) fabric factory in Vietnam on Thursday, destroying part of its facilities with losses of around NT$2.5 million (US$82,000), the company said yesterday.
The company said production lines at the factory would be shut down for three days and return to normal within seven days. However, the fire is not expected to affect Eclat’s shipments because the company has enough inventory, the company said.
No injuries were reported in the fire, which was caused by an oil leak in a boiler, Eclat said.
Lotus decides against Alvogen
Generic drug developer Lotus Pharmaceutical Co (美時化學製藥) yesterday said it had decided not to acquire control of China-based Alvogen Asia because of the high costs of building retail routes in China.
“Establishing retail routes in China is currently not the top priority for Lotus,” the company said, adding that Lotus plans to focus more on increasing its portfolio and integrating its resources with US-based Alvogen Group Inc.
“However, we will never give up the fast-growing Chinese market,” Lotus vice president Hung Yao-le (洪堯樂) said by telephone.
Yageo sees profits jump
Yageo Corp (國巨), the nation’s largest passive components maker, yesterday posted a net profit of NT$1.18 billion for last quarter, a steep increase from the NT$460 million posted a year ago, aided by strong demand from the computer and electronics manufacturing sectors.
Compared with the second quarter’s NT$943 million, net profit increased by 25 percent.
Gross margin improved to 26.9 percent last quarter from the 26 percent recorded a year earlier, but declined from last quarter’s 27.4 percent.
For this quarter, Yageo said it would slow, but that the company plans to accelerate its expansion in the European and US markets in an effort to enhance its competitiveness and profitability.
WPG pedicts Q4 sales decline
Semiconductor component distributor WPG Holdings Co (大聯大投資控股) yesterday projected that sales for this quarter would decline by between 5.74 percent and 9.93 percent from that seen last quarter due to seasonal weakness in the supply chain and inventory adjustment in distribution channels.
Consolidated sales are forecast to be between NT$107.5 billion and NT$112.5 billion, a drop from the record NT$119.35 billion recorded last quarter, while gross margin is likely to fall to between 4.4 percent and 4.7 percent this quarter, compared with 4.45 percent last quarter, and operating margin could slide to between 1.5 percent and 1.7 percent from 1.76 percent over the same period.
During the July-to-September period, WPG reported a net profit of NT$1.56 billion, or NT$0.94 per share.
Hermes net profit edges down
Electron-beam wafer inspection equipment maker Hermes Microvision Inc (HMI, 漢微科) on Thursday posted NT$598 million in net profit for last quarter, down 0.71 percent from the second quarter.
From January through September, the company reported net profit of NT$1.79 billion, a rise of 8.6 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Earnings per share were NT$8.43 in the last quarter, with cumulative earnings per share totaling NT$25.13 in the first three quarters of the year, the company said.
Hermes Microvision reiterated that sales for this quarter would increase from last quarter due to new orders from clients, with sales for this year likely to rise by between 30 and 40 percent from that seen last year.
Meanwhile, the company’s board announced the promotion of chief operating officer Pan Chung-shih (潘中石) to president, replacing Jack Jau (招允佳).
Flexium forecasts drop in sales
Flexium Interconnect Inc (台郡), a Taiwanese producer of printed circuit boards, on Thursday said sales for this quarter would drop by between 10 and 20 percent from the same period a year earlier, which implies a quarterly increase in sales of between 30 percent and 45 percent from that posted last quarter.
The company said its initial yield rate for its key customer’s new smartphone models is satisfactory and expects its gross margin for this quarter to increase by between 2 percentage points and 3 percentage points from 22 percent last quarter.
Flexium also revised its full-year sales growth estimate down from flat growth to a year-on-year decline of 10 percent, as it decided to give up some low-end products and tried to increase its exposure to mid and high-end products.
In the past quarter, the company reported a weaker-than-expected net income of NT$360 million, down 36.1 percent year-on-year, because of lower sales, higher-than-expected operating costs and tax payments.
TPK reshuffling board: report
Touchpanel maker TPK Holdings Co (宸鴻) is reportedly to hold a board meeting on Tuesday to approve a change of management as the company is struggling with declining earnings, domestic media outlets reported yesterday.
The board is likely to appoint Michael Chung (鍾依華) as the company’s new president, replacing Tom Sun (孫大明), who would be promoted to vice chairman, the reports said.
Chung was Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) head of the iDPBG division, which makes iPhones and is Hon Hai’s most profitable business group, before he left the company last year for health reasons.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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