TRANSPORTATION
Gogoro expands to 7-Eleven
Electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) yesterday launched a battery-swapping station at a Taiwanese convenience store for the first time. The station was set up at a President Chain Store Corp (統一超商) 7-Eleven store in Taipei’s Zhongshan District (中山), one of the chain’s 5,000 stores in Taiwan, for the convenience of Gogoro Smartscooter riders. Gogoro has 96 GoStations that offer 24-hour battery-swapping services in Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan — mostly at gas stations — and is expected to expand to Keelung and Hsinchu County by the end of this year. The company’s sales of electric scooters rose by a monthly 106 percent last month to 680 units after it cut prices by as much as 23 percent at the start of the month in response to consumer complaints about high prices. Since the Smartscooter was introduced in Taiwan in June, the company has sold about 1,700 units. The current starting price is NT$88,000 and buyers are eligible to receive a subsidy under local government policies to encourage the use of electric vehicles. Founded in 2011 by former executives of smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電), Gogoro has received US$50 million in funding from Taiwanese entrepreneur Samuel Yin (尹衍樑) and HTC chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅).
HOTELS
Hyatt eyes brand expansion
US-based Hyatt Hotels Corp is expected to bring more of its brands to Taiwan after opening its first and only hotel, the Grand Hyatt, in Taipei in 1990. The company yesterday said that the strength of Taiwan’s tourism industry has become too strong to ignore, and as a result the Hyatt group is actively seeking to expand its presence in the nation. The group could bring its other luxury brands, including Park Hyatt, Hyatt Regency and Andaz, to Taiwan in the future, the hotelier said. Hyatt operates 627 hotels worldwide, including those under the premium Park Hyatt brand in Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Sanya in China’s Hainan Province, as well as in Melbourne and Sydney, the company said. The group declined to disclose when or where the planned outlets are to be opened, but did say Taipei is the most likely location. Other brands could possibly find homes in other municipalities such as New Taipei City, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.
TRADE
Cross-strait trade talks fail
The 12th round of formal negotiations between Taipei and Beijing failed to agree on a goods agreement, because the two sides remained divided over rules of origin and tax reductions, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait could not agree on rules of origin for 193 industrial and agricultural goods and need more time to discuss the issue, the ministry said. Industrial Development Bureau Director-General Wu Ming-ji (吳明機), who participated in the three-day negotiations, said: “Taiwan’s negotiators have made significant progress in tax reductions for most goods, although the terms are not finalized yet.” Another round of formal negotiations are to be held in Taipei next month.
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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