RESTAURANTS
Gourmet Master revenue up
Gourmet Master Co (美食達人), the operator of cafe and bakery chain 85oC (85度C), saw its net income surge 95 percent annually to NT$370 million (US$11.37 million) last quarter, with earnings per share rising to NT$2.62 from NT$1.34 a year earlier, the company said in a statement. The company also reported a revenue increase of 17 percent to NT$1.85 billion last month, elevating its total sales by 15 percent to NT$7.32 billion for the first four months, thanks to strong demand for cakes and a successful marketing strategy over the Mother’s Day season. The company expects the growth momentum to sustain in the following quarters with its supply chains and central kitchens due to complete adjustments by the end of this quarter, the statement said, adding that the expansion plans in the US will also help sales.
RETAIL
President sales rise 7.18%
President Chain Store Corp (PCSC, 統一超商), operator of the nation’s largest convenience store chain, 7-Eleven, yesterday reported that sales rose 7.18 percent annually to NT$17.44 billion (US$535.99 million) last month, while consolidated sales during the first four months of the year climbed 6.88 percent to NT$68.96 billion. The company attribuited the sale increase to the addition of more outlets in overseas markets. Its Philippines-based operations have reached 1,675 outlets and drugstore chain Cosmed (康是美) has opened 14 new stores to total 382 outlets over the same period last year, the company said in a press statement.
RETAIL
FamilyMart revenue rises
Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店), Taiwan’s second-largest convenience store operator, with 2,997 outlets nationwide, saw its revenue reach NT$4.77 billion last month, up 2.96 percent year-on-year, thanks to a successful marketing strategy. The company has launched a campaign of collecting points on its cellphone app that has helped attract more customers to the stores, the company said in a statement. Total sales in the first four months increased 4.86 percent year-on-year to NT$18.88 billion.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai revenue up 8.53%
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), one of Apple Inc’s iPhone assemblers, yesterday reported revenues of NT$322.38 billion for last month, a 8.53 percent annual decline and 5.07 percent monthly decline, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Hon Hai attributed the decline to the relative weak performance of its computing segment, compared with a month earlier. Its consumer electronics and communication segments last month fared better than a month ago, it said. Consolidated revenues reached NT$1.28 trillion in the first four months of this year, shrinking 6.33 percent from last year’s NT$1.36 trillion.
CHINA
Producer price decline slows
Producer prices declined at their slowest rate in 16 months last month, official data showed yesterday, a positive sign for the world’s second-largest economy. The producer price index (PPI), which measures prices of goods at the factory gate and is a leading indicator of consumer inflation, fell by 3.4 percent from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement. The “significant moderation” of the PPI falls was largely due to rising commodity prices and higher production driven by infrastructure investment, Nomura analysts said in a note, adding: “PPI deflation may continue to narrow.”
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