AUTOPARTS
Hiroca earnings rise 9.87%
Hiroca Holdings Ltd (廣華控股), a Taiwanese autoparts maker based in China, yesterday announced that earnings last month rose 9.87 percent sequentially to NT$633 million (US$19.65 million). Aggregate sales in the first six months totaled NT$3.68 billion, dipping 7.03 percent from the same period a year ago. The company said that it is not expecting significant sales growth in the second quarter due to the slow season, as the Chinese auto market undergoes a structural adjustment, while Japanese automakers continue adjustments to deal with an inventory glut. However, the company expects gross margin to stay flat at a favorable 28.43 percent, it said.
APPAREL
Jinli sales rise 10.8 percent
Jinli Group Holdings Ltd (金麗集團控股), a Taiwanese apparel maker focused on the Chinese market, yesterday reported that sales last month gained 10.8 percent annually to NT$439 million, while aggregate sales in the first half of this year rose 22.57 percent to NT$1.56 billion. The company also reported that sales of its new beauty facial mask brand saw a 10-fold sequential jump in sales last month, but did not provide further details. It said that a new wave of skin care products are to be launched before the end of this quarter.
TELECOMS
Firms to subsidize HTC Vive
The nation’s five major telecom operators, including Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), are to subsidize the purchase of HTC Corp’s (宏達電) Vive virtual-realty headset starting on Friday. That is a business model similar to the way local telephone companies heavily subsidize purchases of premium smartphones, such as Apple Inc’s iPhones. Customers would have to pay only NT$16,990 for the Vive, which retails for NT$28,288, by subscribing to a service package with a minimum monthly fee of NT$1,399 for 30 months.
INTERNET
Google launches app festival
Google yesterday launched the Google Play Mobile Carnival in Taiwan, using two trucks as pop-up stores to increase the exposure of a wide range of mobile applications to mobile phone users. This is the second consecutive year that Google has carried out the months-long advertising event for app developers and consumers. Google said the two trucks are loaded with demonstrative facilities for consumers to learn more about a selection of apps on Google Play, the Internet giant’s app store, such as augmented-reality productivity app Framy. The trucks are to tour western Taiwan and make stops in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung from Friday to Sept. 4, Google said.
FOOD
Tai Tong to establish center
Tai Tong Food & Beverage Group (TTFB, 瓦城泰統集團) yesterday announced it invested NT$400 million in a 1,571 ping (5,193.4m2) plot of land in Taoyuan, which is to be the site of the company’s global innovation center. The center is to house the company’s research efforts into overcoming difficulties in maintaining consistent quality standards across the multiple restaurants of its Asian cuisine franchises, it said. TTFB hopes that its center will lead to more sustainable stores and faster market expansion, as well as the promotion of Asian cuisines to global markets, chairman Charles Hsu (徐承義) said in a statement. TTFB, one of the nation’s leading restaurant operators, said it serves more than 6 million consumers each year across its five brands’ 96 restaurants in Taiwan and China.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the