MACROECONOMICS
Per capita debt drops
The nation’s debt per capita reached NT$230,000 (US$7,381) last month, down NT$4,000 from last year and NT$8,000 from May, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. As of the end of last month, the central government’s long-term and short-term debts totaled NT$5.3916 trillion, the ministry said in a statement.
SEMICONDUCTORS
HMI sales skyrocket
Semiconductor inspection tool and equipment maker Hermes Microvision Inc (HMI, 漢微科) yesterday reported record sales of NT$1.945 billion for last month, up 214.76 percent from a year ago and 929.1 percent from the previous month. That brought sales last quarter to NT$2.306 billion, up 46.61 percent from the first quarter and better than the firm’s revised growth target of 30 to 40 percent. Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) projected that sales for this quarter would be flat sequentially, supported by chipmakers’ 20-nanometer (nm) migration as well as logic clients’ 10nm and 7nm orders.
TOURISM
Lion Travel sales rise
Lion Travel Service Co Ltd (雄獅旅行社), the nation’s largest outbound travel service company, yesterday said that first-half sales rose 26.63 percent from the same period last year to NT$10.16 billion, aided by better-than-expected revenues in the second quarter. Booming travel to Japan and Europe lifted sales in the April-June quarter by 27.56 percent year-on-year and 36.55 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$5.87 billion, the company said.
AUTOMOTIVE
Hota sets June sales record
Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co (和大工業) yesterday said that sales last month were the highest June sales in its history at NT$412 million. The company, which makes gears and shafts for automobiles, said last month’s sales were 30.79 percent higher than a year earlier, but 11.02 percent lower than May’s NT$463 million, pushing sales in the first six months of the year to NT$2.531 billion, up 25.99 percent from a year earlier. Analysts said Hota’s sales for the second half could see continued support from strong orders placed by BorgWarner Inc and Tesla Motors Inc of the US.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Macronix posts sales jump
Macronix International Co (旺宏電子), which supplies memorychips to Japanese video game console maker Nintendo Co, yesterday reported its best monthly revenue in seven months at NT$1.82 billion, up 14.6 percent from NT$1.59 billion in May. In the second quarter, revenue totaled NT$4.97 billion, up 5.74 percent from the previous quarter’s NT$4.7 billion. Rival Windbond Electronics Corp (華邦電子) said its revenue dropped 2.15 percent month-on-month to NT$3.01 billion last month, the lowest in 15 months, with second-quarter revenue falling 4.84 percent to NT$9.25 billion from the first quarter.
DISPLAY
AUO revenue drops 2.1%
AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) yesterday said its revenue slid 2.1 percent to NT$30.56 for last month, pushing its quarterly sales down by 3.15 percent from the previous quarter to NT$92.3 billion. The nation’s second-biggest LCD panelmaker said in a news release that shipments of PC and TV panels dipped 7.1 percent to 24.9 million units last quarter from 26.8 million units in the previous quarter, while shipments of smaller screens for smartphones grew 12.6 percent to 48.04 million units.
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