TECHNOLOGY
GlobalWafers’ profit plunges
GlobalWafers Co Ltd (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 6 wafer supplier, yesterday said net profit plunged 37.8 percent to NT$287 million (US$89.1 million) in the first quarter, compared with NT$464 million in the previous quarter, due to lower average selling prices and higher costs. Gross margin stood at 23 percent last quarter, the company said. GlobalWafters said demand for small and medium-sized wafers would stablize this quarter, helping keep its production utilization rate at full capacity.
SOLAR
Gintech reverses losses
Solar cell maker Gintech Energy Corp (昱晶) yesterday said net profit surged 33.85 percent to NT$522 million last quarter from the previous quarter, compared with losses of NT$296 million a year earlier. The company said its gross margin improved to 13.6 percent last quarter — compared with 11.6 percent a quarter earlier and minus-2.2 percent a year earlier — due to higher average selling prices. Gintech’s board approved plans to issue new shares to safeguard long-term strategic partnerships and improve its working capital.
ELECTRONICS
E-Lead income drops 93%
E-Lead Electronic Co (怡利電子), an auto electronics manufacturer focusing on infotainment head units, reported yesterday that net income dropped 93.29 percent annually to NT$6.4 million in the first quarter, with earnings per share falling from NT$0.8 to NT$0.05 over the same period. Revenue decreased 26.02 percent annually to NT$641.49 million in the first quarter, the company said. E-Lead said the weak performance in the first quarter was due to fewer orders from the Middle East and a high comparison base the previous year.
CHIPMAKERS
Adata income quadruples
DRAM module maker Adata Technology Co (威剛) yesterday said net income grew more than fourfold to NT$111.92 million for the first quarter from a year earlier, with earnings per share of NT$0.56. The company’s revenue for the first quarter posted an annual decline of 10.54 percent to NT$4.88 billion, but its gross margin increased by 2.58 percentage points to 7.15 percent over the same period, according to a company financial statement. The company said it is positive over its shipments in the second half of the year.
TECHNOLOGY
GeoVision’s earnings shrink
Digital surveillance equipment supplier GeoVision Inc (奇偶) saw its earnings shrink by 40 percent annually in the first quarter due to higher global competition and delayed product launches. The company also reported foreign-exchange losses of NT$21 million in the first quarter. Net income reached NT$47 million in the January-to-March quarter, with earnings per share of NT$0.61, the lowest quarterly figure in the company’s history, company data showed. Revenue in the first quarter dropped 7 percent year-on-year to NT$495 million, while gross margin fell to 48 percent from 54 percent, the company said.
PANEL MAKERS
AUO plans training center
LCD panel maker AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) yesterday said it plans to transform a 3.5G facility into a training center in collaboration with National Taipei University of Technology. The Hsinchu-based 3.5G facility-turned training center is to be the nation’s first LCD training center. In the collaboration, AUO also plans internship opportunities for the university’s students.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts