ELECTRONICS
HTC, Jimmy Liao team up
Jimmy S.P.A. Plus Co Ltd (墨色國際), a company founded to promote artist Jimmy Liao (幾米) as a cultural brand around the globe, and HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday announced plans to integrate HTC’s virtual reality technology with Liao’s latest picture books. The crossover between the arts and technology industries extends Liao’s imagination from paper to the three-dimensional realm, HTC said in a statement. The “HTC Vive x Jimmy Liao’s All of My World Is You” exhibition can be visited at the Taipei World Trade Center through Sunday, HTC said.
COMPUTERS
Acer releases ebooks
PC maker Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday released 30 ebooks authorized by the National Palace Museum. Acer founder and former chairman Stan Shih (施振榮) said the company plans to introduce a total of 100 ebooks in cooperation with the museum before the end of this year. He also said Acer does not rule out cooperation between the museum and Acer’s virtual reality (VR) technologies for digital dissertation projects. Acer chief executive officer Jason Chen (陳俊聖) on Monday said the company has been investing in VR technologies R&D for a while.
AUTOMOMAKERS
Hotai forecasts flat sales
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus vehicles in Taiwan, yesterday said it expects automotive sales to reach 420,000 cars this year, similar to last year’s sales amid uncertainties in the global economy. Company president Justin Su (蘇純興) told a news conference that the firm expects to sell 130,000 Toyota and Lexus models this year, down slightly from last year’s 132,000. Due to the clouded outlook of the global economy, Su said the company lowered its market share by 2 percentage points to 31 percent this year from the 33 percent share last year.
RETAIL
President sales increase
President Chain Store Corp (統一超商), which operates the nation’s largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, yesterday said that sales last month rose 8.39 percent annually to NT$17.38 billion (US$519.53 million). The company said that sales were boosted by cold and wet weather across Taiwan last month, which drove up demand for hot food and beverage products by about 20 percent compared with the previous year. Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店), the nation’s second-largest convenience store operator, said sales last month grew 6.57 percent year-on-year to NT$4.75 billion.
ELECTRONICS
Delta annual sales rise
Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said that sales last month rose 2 percent annually, but declined 7.1 percent sequentially to NT$17.15 billion. During the period, power supply products contributed 53 percent of sales, followed by power management products at 25 percent, while green energy and smart home products accounted for 20 percent of revenues. Delta shares yesterday gained 4.83 percent to close at NT$141 in Taipei trading yesterday, recovering from its tumble to NT$124 on Jan. 21, the lowest since August 2013, but still lower than the NT$150 price point at which the company had issued 160 million new shares last month aiming to raise NT$24 billion in capital. The company yesterday also announced that it would build an R&D center in India with 500 high-technology engineer positions in the next three years. The R&D center is to focus on developing advanced smart energy solutions, the firm said in a statement.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is