MANUFACTURING
Weak US retail could hurt
The weak spring sales of major retail brands in North America — including JC Penny Co, Nordstrom Inc, Kohl’s Corp, Macy’s Inc, The Gap Inc and Lululemon Athletica Inc — might have negative implications for Taiwan’s textile and footwear sector, Macquarie Capital Securities Ltd said in a client note on Monday. “We expect suppliers’ slower revenue growth and margin pressure from brand and retailer clients to continue in the remainder of the year,” Macquarie’s Taipei-based analysts led by Corinne Jian (簡秋萍) wrote in the note, saying that US consumers spending patterns are changing from apparel to entertainment and to home beautification. Shares of apparel maker Eclat Textile Co (儒鴻) fell 0.85 percent and textile supplier Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽) dropped 0.64 percent in Taipei trading yesterday, while footwear maker Feng Tay Enterprise Co (豐泰鞋業) rose 2.38 percent.
AUTOMAKERS
Sanyang upbeat on Q2
Automobile and motorcycle manufacturer Sanyang Industry Co (三陽工業) yesterday said sales would increase this quarter from the previous quarter, as its corporate restructuring efforts bear fruit. Vice chairman and president Wu Chin-yuan (吳清源) said the company’s share of the domestic motorcycle market is expected to reach 25 percent by the end of this year, compared with 22.8 percent in the first quarter. Automobile sales by the company, which assembles Hyundai Motor Co’s Tucson cars, are forecast to hit as high as 16,000 units by the end of the year, the highest in nearly five years, Wu said. Shares of Sanyang rose 0.25 percent yesterday in Taipei trading.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Q1 revenue rises 3.1%
The revenue of the nation’s food and beverage sector totaled NT$111 billion (US$3.4 billion) in the first quarter, up 3.1 percent from a year earlier and a new high, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Monday. Thanks to the launch of new restaurant brands and a growing focus on leisure, the January-to-March quarter was also the 28th consecutive quarter in which the sector posted an annual increase in revenue, ministry data showed. The ministry said it expected the growth momentum to continue, forecasting full-year revenue of NT$430 billion for this year, which would be 1.4 percent higher than last year’s NT$424.1 billion.
AVIATION
New Boeing 777 for CAL
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) on Monday took delivery of the world’s first cobranded Boeing 777 aircraft at a Boeing production facility in Washington state. The new Boeing 777 300ER aircraft bears the names and logos of CAL and Boeing on its fuselage, while CAL’s plum blossom logo is also on the tail. The new aircraft, CAL’s 10th 777 from Boeing, will be used on routes from Taipei to Europe and the US starting later this month, the airline said.
BANKING
ANZ cuts jobs in Australia
Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) is eliminating about 200 jobs in its Australian unit as lending growth slows in a subdued economy. The reductions will be largely in Melbourne and affect managerial and back-office roles in areas such as marketing and project management, spokesman Stephen Ries said in an e-mail yesterday. ANZ is also slashing its Asian and institutional-banking workforce as part of a move to exit low-returning assets.
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],”
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
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