ENERGY
Motech quarterly losses rise
Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), one of the nation’s largest solar cell manufacturers, yesterday posted a bigger quarterly loss due mainly to the acquisition of a loss-making solar cell maker. Motech reported a loss of NT$549 million (US$17.32 million) for last quarter, compared with a NT$487 million loss in the previous quarter. However, the company booked NT$90 million in gross profit for last quarter, an improvement from a NT$122 million loss in the first quarter. Revenue expanded to NT$5.14 billion last quarter from NT$4.19 billion in the first quarterdue to shipment growth. However, revenue was down 22.72 percent on an annual basis due to price reductions, the company said. Motech acquired Topcell Solar International Co (聯景光電) for NT$2.05 billion. The transaction was completed in June.
DISPLAYS
TPK sales rise 36% in July
TPK Holding Co (宸鴻), which supplies touchpanels to Apple Inc, yesterday said that its revenue jumped by 36 percent to NT$9.54 billion last month from June’s NT$7.01 billion. The figure was the highest since March. Last month’s revenue represented an annual decline of 10.3 percent from NT$10.63 billion in July last year. TPK last week forecast that revenue would jump 50 percent sequentially this quarter from NT$23.74 billion last quarter because of new orders.
SMARTPHONES
Operations normal: Catcher
Catcher Technologies Co (可成科技), which supplies metal casings for Apple Inc’s iPhones, yesterday said that a demonstration at one of its plants in China would not affect its operations. Media reports yesterday morning said that workers at one of its Suzhou plants were protesting the company’s redundancy pay plan, following its decision to close the Suzhou plant and transfer production to facilities in Suqian and Taizhou. The company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange that local authorities were helping the firm maintain order at the Suzhou plant and communicate with employees. Catcher said it has been expanding capacity at its Suqian and Taizhou plants since 2008, and the production transfer would not affect its operations.
AIRLINES
CAL appoints new president
China Airlines (CAL, 華航), the nation’s biggest carrier, yesterday held a ceremony marking the appointment of Chang Yu-hern (張有恆) as its new president. Chang, 61, is a veteran in the transportation industry and previously served as chairman of the Civil Aeronautics Administration, the Taiwan High Speed Rail Co, the Aviation Safety Council and the China Aviation Development Foundation. Chang’s predecessor, Samuel Lin (林鵬良), has been tapped to serve as chairman of Taoyuan International Airport Corp.
DISPLAYS
LCD TV sales slide: report
Shipments of Taiwan-made LCD TVs fell by more than 8 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, as China’s Haier Group cut orders, Taipei-based Digitimes Research said. Taiwanese contract manufacturer Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) saw its shipments fall due to product transitions at the client end, Digitimes said in a report. However, increased shipments to South Korea’s LG Electronics Co and to China’s Xiaomi Corp (小米) lent some support to Taiwanese LCD TV sales in the quarter, the report said. In the April-June period, Taiwan’s LCD TV shipments totaled 7.97 million units, down 8.6 percent from a year earlier, but up 6.6 percent from the first quarter, Digitimes data showed.
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