QUALITY CONTROL
FPG inks deal with Chiayi
Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) — the nation’s largest industrial conglomerate — yesterday signed a cooperation agreement with the Chiayi County Government, pledging to donate NT$250 million (US$7.99 million) to construct a building and related facilities committed to the nation’s food safety. The group said the construction of the building will begin later this year. It will have five floors above ground and one basement, and the facilities will include a food inspection center, a supermarket selling major farm produce brands, restaurants, cooking and audio-video classrooms and a library, it said.
PANELMAKERS
MIC predicts revenue drop
The nation’s LCD TV panel revenue is expected to decline for a third year to US$13.77 billion this year, the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (MIC, 產業情報研究所) said yesterday. However, global LCD TV panel revenue is forecast to increase 1.9 percent to US$43.8 billion this year from last year due to shipment growth, it said. South Korea and China are expected to see their LCD TV panel revenues increase by 6 percent and 25 percent annually this year to US$21.99 billion and US$6.14 billion respectively, the institute said. Global TV panel prices are expected to rise 1.3 percent to US$178 per unit this year, helped by increase in shipments of larger-sized and high-end panels, it said. However, Taiwanese makers will see their product prices fall to US$175.4 per unit this year from last year’s US$177, it said.
COMPUTERS
Global shipments slump
Barclays Capital Securities Ltd on Wednesday said global PC shipments would face a sub-seasonal growth in the second quarter amid a lack of innovative new products to stimulate demand. The brokerage said in a note that notebook shipments might grow 5 percent this quarter from last quarter, below an average increase of 6 percent over previous second quarters. Desktop PC and motherboard shipments are estimated to be flat from the first quarter, below an average 1 percent growth over the past second quarters, the brokerage said.
AUTOMOBILES
Car sales rose last month
Domestic car sales rose 35.9 percent to 33,900 units last month from the 24,933 cars sold in the previous month, the latest industry data showed yesterday. The figure was 1.2 percent lower year-on-year. Hotai Motor Co (和泰車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus vehicles, topped its local peers by selling 9,967 cars last month, or 29.4 percent of the total car sales in the month, the data showed. In the first three months of the year, total domestic car sales totaled 106,811 units, up 7.5 percent year-on-year, the data showed.
MANUFACTURING
Ichia misses expectations
Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉科技) on Wednesday reported sales for last month that missed market expectations. The company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange that its consolidated sales fell 41.55 percent year-on-year, but increased 22.92 percent month-on-month to NT$593.89 million last month. Sales from the company’s flexible printed-circuit integrated components were NT$471 million and NT$128 million for mechanical integrated components, the company said. For the first three months of the year, Ichia’s consolidated revenue totaled NT$1.88 billion, down 32.37 percent from the same period last year and 25.1 percent lower than the previous three months, its data showed.
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
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six