ELECTRONICS
Pegatron revenue down 5.7%
Pegatron Corp (和碩), one of Apple Inc’s iPhone assemblers, yesterday reported a 5.7 percent decline in revenues to NT$66.55 billion (US$2.05 billion) last month. The scale of the annual decline narrowed from the prior month’s 16.32 percent, according to the company’s filings with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. On a monthly basis, last month’s revenue climbed slightly by 2.27 percent from the previous month’s NT$65.07 billion. Pegatron’s consolidated revenues in the first five months of this year totaled NT$388.15 billion, falling 8.15 percent from a year ago, the filing said. Pegatron chief executive officer Jason Cheng (程建中) last month told investors that this quarter is expected to be the low point of the firm’s operations this year, before the business picks up next quarter.
APPAREL
TOPBI sales up 6.18%
China-focused apparel company TOPBI International Holdings Ltd (淘帝國際控股) yesterday said that sales last month gained 6.18 percent to NT$514 million, as local retailers ramped up inventory orders ahead of the International Children’s Day promotional drive that began on the first of this month. Sales in the first five months also grew 4.85 percent to NT$2.18 billion.
LIGHTING
Laster Tech sales up
Laster Tech Corp Ltd (麗清科技), a leading Taiwanese LED chip and lighting products supplier to Chinese car makers, yesterday said that sales may be better than expected during the annual slow season in the third quarter as major clients launch new models. The company reported that sales last month grew 71.36 percent annually and 59.76 percent sequentially to NT$353 million. Aggregate sales in the first five months were NT$1.25 billion, 11.58 percent higher than last year, the company said.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Taipower to invest
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is planning to invest NT400 billion (US$12.37 billion) in the development of renewable energy over the next 15 years, spending more than 80 percent of that amount on wind power. “Green” energy is one of the five key industries in President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) economic policy, the state-owned company said, adding that it plans to focus on wind and solar energy. Offshore wind farms are to be a major part of the 15-year plan, including 300 wind turbines to be built off the coast of Fangyuan Township (芳苑), Changhua County, according to the company. Taipower currently owns 169 wind turbines in the country, while private operators own 157, which have a combined installed capacity of 644,560 kilowatts. Taiwan’s power plants had a total capacity of 41.126 million kilowatts as of April, according to the company’s Web site. Taipower said it will need to recruit specialists for maintenance of the 45m-to-68m-tall turbines that are to be part of the NT$400 billion project.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
NT dollar falls on Brexit fear
The US dollar rose against the New Taiwan dollar on Monday, gaining NT$0.210 to close at NT$32.435 as traders rushed to park their funds in the greenback amid fears that the UK will vote to leave the EU, dealers said. The weakness of other regional currencies and heavy foreign institutional selling in Taiwan’s stock market added downward pressure on the NT dollar throughout the session, they said. Turnover totaled US$587 million during the trading session.
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