FOOD & BEVERAGE
TGI Fridays eyes growth
TGI Fridays (Taiwan) Inc (星期五), a unit of Bayshore Pacific Hospitality Ltd (北軒餐飲管理) that operates the US-style restaurant chain, yesterday said it is looking to grow its revenue by a double-digit percentage this year after adopting a new strategy to increase average customer spending by updating its menu. The chain, which has 13 outlets in the nation, saw sales last year rebound from 2013, bucking the declining trend of the previous three consecutive years, after Bayshore Pacific took over its management in August last year. The company last month launched 40 new menu items, a move that has generated NT$20 million (US$641,807) in sales for the chain thus far, which is set to help the company to reach the double-digit growth target set for the year, managing director Jeff Lee (李宏智) said. The chain has seen the new dishes drive up its average customer expenditure from NT$550 to about NT$600, the company said.
TECHNOLOGY
Photonic show next week
Ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) LED lighting applications, optical applications on mobile devices and 3D printing technologies are the focus of this year’s Photonic show in Taiwan, show organizer the Phonics Industry and Technology Development Association (光電協進會) said yesterday. The association said that the production value of the nation’s optical electronics industry was worth NT$2.467 trillion last year, accounting for 12 percent of the global industry’s total production value of US$576.6 billion. The association said the annual trade show would be held in the Taipei World Trade Center and the Nangang Exhibition Hall from Tuesday to Thursday, with more than 500 companies showcasing the latest technologies and applications at more than 1,000 booths. The association expects more than 30,000 foreign visitors from 40 countries to visit the show.
HOSPITALITY
Farglory plans Jiaosi hotel
Farglory Hotel Co (遠雄悅來大飯店), part of Farglory Group (遠雄企業集團), is scheduled to begin construction of a hotel in Jiaosi Township (礁溪), Yilan County, in the second half of this year at the earliest, with hopes of opening it in two to three years. Farglory Hotel, which operates a luxury hotel in Hualien, received a construction permit late last year for its construction plans for Jiaosi, with the company still awaiting permits for its other plans for sites on Taipei’s Yangmingshan (陽明山) and Chiayi County’s Alishan (阿里山). As for the hotel project in the controversial Taipei Dome complex, the company said it would continue discussions with its parent company for possible cooperation in the second half of this year.
ELECTRONICS
Lite-On revenue down
Electronics component maker Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技) on Tuesday reported consolidated revenue of NT$16.76 billion last month, a decrease of 15 percent year-on-year and 2 percent month-on-month, which the company attributed to a slowdown of worldwide end-market demand. With stable order intakes for the company’s core businesses, such as optoelectronics and information technologies, Lite-On said its cumulative sales for the first five months of the year totaled NT$85.48 billion, a decrease of 5 percent from a year earlier.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to