COMPUTERS
Acer ‘not bad’: founder
Acer Inc (宏碁) founder and former chairman Stan Shih (施振榮) yesterday said he hopes investors and the public are patient with Acer, as it will take time for the firm to complete a corporate transformation. At the end of 2013, the PC maker announced plans to carry out a three-year restructuring plan in a bid to regain competitiveness after that year reporting a net loss of NT$20.51 billion (US$606.3 million at current exchange rates), or a loss per share of NT$7.54. With the three-year plan due to be completed this year, Shih said the company was doing “not bad” under the leadership of CEO Jason Chen (陳俊聖).
INTERNET
PChome plans Ruten IPO
PChome Online Inc (網路家庭) chairman Jan Hung-tze (詹宏志) yesterday said the company is planning an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong of its subsidiary Ruten.com (露天拍賣) in the near term. Taiwan has outstanding talent and a good environment for the Internet industry, but has not received global attention mainly because the spotlight has been on the Chinese market, Jan told reporters on the sidelines of a Ruten event celebrating the listing of 100 million items on the auction Web site.
RETAIL
PCSC, institute to team up
President Chain Store Corp (PCSC, 統一超商), which operates the nation’s largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, yesterday inked a memorandum of understanding with the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute to exchange information on the latest research and end-user demand trends. Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) said the institute would share its research on agricultural goods with the company via the collaboration, while the company would provide the institute with market information. Chen said that he expects the cooperation to benefit Taiwan’s agricultural industry in the long term.
RUBBER MAKERS
TSRC Corp to focus on TPE
Synthetic rubber maker TSRC Corp (台橡) yesterday said it expects its performance this year to be better than last year, despite a gloomy global economic outlook, driven by the firm’s efforts to diversify its operations. CEO Tsai Wei-chiang (蔡偉強) told reporters that the company plans place more emphasis on its thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) business, due to rising demand from clients because of the numerous applications for TPE. Tsai said that he expects an increase in sales contribution from the TPE segment this year. As for TSRC’s core products — polybutadiene and styrene-butadiene, which are used in the production of tires — Tsai said demand from the Chinese market would determine sales performance this year.
APPAREL
Makalot sees record income
Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽), a diversified garment manufacturer for global brands and major clothing retailers, reported pre-tax income of NT$2.69 billion last year, the highest pre-tax earnings performance in its history. The pre-tax result was an increase of 28.47 percent from NT$2.09 billion in 2014, according to the firm. Makalot’s combined revenue totaled NT$23.35 billion last year, representing an annual increase of 11.82 percent from NT$20.88 billion in 2014. The company said its sales last year were driven by rising demand for functional clothing, which have higher average selling prices that benefit the firm’s revenue.
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
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],”