AIRLINES
EVA passenger count rises
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) yesterday said that it has served its 10 millionth passenger, who was traveling from Osaka to Taoyuan on flight BR177. The nation’s second-largest airline announced that its passenger count in the first 11 months of the year rose by more than 10 percent to 9.18 million compared with 8.9 million last year and 8 million last year. EVA Air said that sales last month rose 1.34 percent year-on-year to NT$11.3 billion (US$342.1 million), with aggregate sales in the January-to-November period rising 3.27 percent from the previous year to NT$125 billion. EVA Air’s operations have grown steadily since the company became a Star Alliance member in June 2013, the carrier said.
TECHNOLOGY
ITRI establishes centers
The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan’s top technical researcher, has established two centers devoted to the development of intelligent microsystems and laser and additive manufacturing technologies in southern Taiwan. The move is based on the institute’s plan to put more resources into the fields of micro-electromechanical systems and lasers, ITRI chairman Tsay Ching-yen (蔡清彥) said yesterday at a ceremony introducing the two facilities’ directors. Tsay said he hoped the two centers — the Smart Microsystems Technology Center and the Laser and Additive Manufacturing Technology Center — would fuel the development of a new industry in the nation’s south. Cao Fang-hai (曹芳海), a deputy executive director of ITRI’s Southern Region Campus, said the centers would try to expand development in international markets, adding that the laser sector is expected to see mass production in the future. As for additive manufacturing, which refers to a process by which digital 3D design data are used to build up a component in layers by depositing material, Cao said the field’s technologies are not yet mature, but represent an opportunity.
DIPLOMACY
TPEx inks SME deal
The Taipei Exchange (TPEx) signed a memorandum of understanding with Oman’s Muscat Securities Market on Monday to improve cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the two nations. TPEx president Lee Chi-hsien (李啟賢) said boosting growth of SMEs has become a policy that is promoted worldwide. Through the signing of the document, the TPEx hopes to create new opportunities and markets for Taiwanese companies and take the diligence and creativity of SMEs to the international stage, Lee said.
STOCKMARKET
TAIEX drops 0.77%
The TAIEX dropped 0.77 percent yesterday to below 8,300 points, dragged by large-cap stocks across the board as investors took cues from the losses on Wall Street overnight, dealers said. Turnover remained thin, keeping local share prices in consolidation mode as many foreign institutional investors have been away from the trading floor during the Christmas season, dealers said. The TAIEX closed at 8,293.91 yesterday on turnover of NT$52.48 billion. Ta Ching Securities (大慶證券) analyst Andy Hsu said that while many foreign institutional investors have been away for holidays, others have been cutting their holdings in local shares, in particular large-cap electronics stocks. According to the TWSE, foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$989 million worth of shares on the local main board yesterday.
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
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six