Metal components supplier Tong Ming Enterprise Co Ltd (東明) yesterday said it plans to tap into European markets next year, as anti-dumping duties are to expire this year.
“Tong Ming is to expand business in Europe by launching products with higher gross margin,” company spokeswoman Ko Weng-ling (柯文玲) told an investors’ conference in Taipei.
With EU anti-dumping duties on some Chinese stainless steel products to expire this year, shipments of metal components to Europe are expected to increase in the near future, Ko said.
The company, headquartered in China’s Zhejiang Province, mainly manufactures stainless steel fasteners and steel wires for global customers, with one subsidiary in Kaohsiung and 33 in China.
The Kaohsiung unit serves as Tong Ming’s innovation center for its high-added-value products, including steel components used for building solar power plants and planes.
“We have received orders from some companies based in northern Europe and those high-margin products would be used for offshore wind power turbines,” Ko told reporters after the conference.
With production volume this year being relatively flat compared to last year, Tong Ming is working to manufacture more high-margin steel components to raise gross margin, Ko added.
Tong Ming is one of the leading suppliers in China’s steel fastener market, with an annual capacity of more than 50,000 tonnes, according to its Web site.
In the first half of this year, sales of stainless steel fasteners accounted for 67.8 percent of the company’s total sales, while those from steel wires and high-margin products accounted for 21.4 percent and 11 percent respectively.
The company also plans to develop e-commerce services and automated storage systems in a bid to efficiently reduce operating expenses, Ko said.
“With those systems, we could immediately get orders from customers and control our inventories, and might be able to distribute products more quickly,” she said.
The company is optimistic about its sales outlook in the fourth quarter, as nickel prices stabilize in the global market.
Nickel is the most important material for making stainless steel products, accounting for nearly 70 percent of the company’s production costs.
In the first half of this year, the company saw sales decrease 6 percent to NT$2.9 billion (US$92.3 million) annually, influenced by floating material costs.
Net profits during the same period declined 7.7 percent to NT$68.93 million from the previous year, company data showed.
Tong Ming shares gained 2.75 percent to NT$26.15 in Taipei trading yesterday.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
RSS