CHIPMAKERS
Lextar annual profit slumps
LED chipmaker Lextar Electronics Corp (隆達電子) yesterday reported a 57.13 percent annual decline in net profit to NT$270 million (US$8.18 million) last year. Earnings per share were NT$0.45, compared with NT$1.09 per share the previous year, the firm said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Lextar attributed the results to intensified price competition that affected sales and profitability last year. The company also posted a 4.93 percent decline in sales to NT$1 billion last month from the previous year due to the slow season and fewer working days because of the Lunar New Year holiday. In the first two months of the year, the company’s revenue totaled NT$2.17 billion, down 6.23 percent from the same period last year, the filing said.
COMPUTERS
Advantech revenue surges
Advantech Co Ltd (研華), the nation’s largest industrial computer maker, yesterday said its revenue surged 14.73 percent to NT$2.7 billion last month from NT$2.35 billion the previous year. On a monthly basis, revenue fell 17.68 percent from NT$3.28 billion in January, the company said. Advantech said the strong annual increase in monthly sales was mainly driven by robust demand in the service automation segment, as well as its network and communications unit. Advantech’s revenue totaled NT$5.99 billion in the first two months of this year, up 10.8 percent from NT$5.4 billion the previous year, it said.
CHIPMAKERS
Macronix posts higher sales
Macronix International Co (旺宏電子), which supplies memory chips for Japanese video game console maker Nintendo Co, yesterday posted a 14.84 percent annual increase in sales to NT$1.62 billion last month. The result was 3.57 percent lower than the previous month’s sales of NT$1.68 billion, the firm said. Macronix’s sales reached NT$3.31 billion in the first two months of this year, 10.89 percent higher than last year’s NT$2.98 billion.
PLASTICS
FPG sales lower on holiday
Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團), the nation’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday said aggregate sales at its four main units dropped 9.8 percent to NT$91.97 billion last month from a month earlier due to fewer working days and some downstream clients delaying opening their businesses after the Lunar New Year holiday. On an annual basis, the combined revenue represented a 17.3 percent decline. The firm said some of its clients extended the Lunar New Year holiday and reopened their businesses after Feb. 22, which affected the performance of one of its four units — Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) — last month. The group’s three other major units are Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), and Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維).
TRADE
No pact consensus: minister
Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) yesterday said negotiators working on the proposed cross-strait trade in goods agreement have not reached a consensus with Beijing as they are still striving for better treatments for Taiwanese companies. Deng’s remarks came after China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Deming (陳德銘) on Sunday told reporters in Beijing that the negotiations had been completed. In response to concerns raised by lawmakers, Deng said Taipei and Beijing have not held any talks regarding the agreement since the elections in January.
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