EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空) yesterday reported strong profits in the first quarter on the back of lower fuel costs and robust seasonal demand during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The nation’s second-largest carrier posted a net profit of NT$2.01 billion (US$65.66 million), or NT$0.55 per share, in the first three months of the year, improving from the prior year’s net loss of NT$909.83 million, or NT$0.28 per share, the company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing.
Earnings per share (EPS) were NT$0.55 last quarter, which marked the highest quarterly figure since the fourth quarter of 2010, EVA said.
The latest results were in line with company expectations. Earlier this year, EVA chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) raised his profit target for this year by 20 percent from an earlier target set in the fourth quarter last year, citing declining global crude oil prices.
The company’s consolidated sales in the first quarter increased 9.81 percent from a year earlier to NT$33.37 billion, which EVA attributed to strong passenger demand during the Lunar New Year holiday.
In comparison, China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), the nation’s largest carrier, posted a net profit of NT$1.85 billion for the January-to-March period, or NT$0.35 per share. A year ago, the company reported net losses of NT$2.73 billion, or NT$0.52 per share.
TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空), which primarily operates regional and cross-strait passenger routes, saw a net loss of NT$61.15 million, or NT$0.1 per share, in the first quarter, down from a net income of NT$49.62, or NT$0.09 per share, posted a year earlier, as the company’s sales and load factors were dragged down by two crashes — one in July last year and another in February this year.
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