AUTOMOTIVE PARTS
Parts making leads in value
The production value of automotive parts manufacturers last year totaled NT$192.1 billion (US$6.3 billion), outpacing automakers’ NT$190.6 billion over the same period, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. It is the first time the nation’s automotive parts makers outpaced automakers in output value. The production value of automotive parts last year rose 6.5 percent from NT$180.4 billion in 2011, while domestic automakers’ production value contracted 6.2 percent in the same period, government statistics showed, suggesting stronger growth momentum in the automotive parts industry. The ministry attributed the increase in the automotive parts industry to growing demand for aftermarket products at home and abroad, while rising competition from international car brands weighed on domestic automakers.
PANEL MAKERS
GIS revenue surges annually
General Interface Solution Holding Ltd (GIS, 業成), which supplies touchpanels for Apple Inc’s iPads, yesterday said that revenue last month rose to NT$8.47 billion, a 7.13 percent increase from NT$7.9 billion in May and a 178 percent surge from NT$3.04 billion in the same period last year. Revenue in the second quarter totaled NT$23.38 billion, up about 28 percent from NT$18.2 billion in the first quarter, the company said, attributing the rise to new product launches by clients. GIS is a touchpanel manufacturing unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Apple’s primary assembler of iPhones.
CHIPMAKERS
Prices boost Adata revenue
Memorychip maker Adata Technology Co (威剛科技) yesterday said that revenue last month climbed 8.17 percent to NT$2.75 billion, compared with NT$2.55 billion in May, due to higher memorychip prices. Demand for solid-state drives also improved, the company said. The figure represented a 46 percent increase from NT$1.88 billion a year earlier, Adata said, adding that cumulative revenue in the second quarter totaled NT$7.83 billion. DRAM modules accounted for 56.6 percent of last quarter’s revenue, while NAND flash products contributed 43 percent, the company said. Adata said it has increased its stockpiles to cope with growing demand in applications such as mobile phones, data centers and PCs ahead of the peak season.
SOLAR ENERGY
Green Energy revenue falls
Solar wafer maker Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技) yesterday posted NT$822 million in revenue for last month, a 9.4 percent decline from NT$907 million in May. Cumulative revenue in the first six months of the year totaled NT$5.21 billion, the firm said. Green Energy attributed last month’s drop in revenue to a new strategy of shipping niche products, which have better margins, to long-term clients only.
BANKING
KTB first-half income jumps
King’s Town Bank (京城銀行) yesterday reported net income of NT$585 million for last month, bringing aggregate profit in the first half of the year to NT$2.8 billion, a 27.5 percent increase from the same period last year. Earnings per share in the six-month period were NT$2.44, company data showed. The lender attributed the increase to improving fees and interest income, as well as investment gains last quarter. As of last month, the lender’s nonperforming loan ration stood at 0.03 percent, with a coverage ratio of 5,667.76 percent, it said.
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