Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday posted revenue of NT$48.15 billion (US$1.58 billion) for the first half, a 15.3 percent decline from a year earlier, with last month’s revenue dropping 17.5 percent annually to NT$8 million, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The firm blamed the sales decline on weaker-than-expected demand in Taiwan’s auto market, in spite of a government subsidy to encourage consumers to buy, while falling sales at its Chinese subsidiary, Dongfeng Yulon Motor Co (東風裕隆), also put pressure on its top line.
Dongfeng Yulon — a joint venture between Yulon and China-based Dongfeng Motor Corp (東風汽車) — in the first six months sold 7,300 Luxgen (納智捷) brand cars in China, a 60.5 percent plunge from the same period last year. The venture sold 40,500 Luxgens in all of last year in China, down 32.9 percent from a year earlier.
Miaoli-based Yulon said it has no plans to withdraw from the Chinese market, even though the venture reported a net loss of NT$4.319 billion last year.
The company’s board last month approved an additional capital injection of 397 million yuan (US$58.5 million) for Dongfeng Yulon to improve its financial structure. It also plans to launch 10 new models over the next five years to revitalize its Chinese business, the company said.
Dongfeng Yulon has paid-in capital of 2.75 billion yuan, data showed.
The capital injection plan still needs the approval of the Investment Commission, according to a company statement.
Yulon has not released its earnings results for the second quarter. The company’s net income rose 21 percent annually to NT$761 million in the first quarter, with earnings per share of NT$0.52, helped by earnings from its vehicle financing unit, Taiwan Acceptance Corp (裕融), which saw net profit rise 19.5 percent to NT$552 million in the quarter.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to