Auto parts maker Tong Yang Industry Co (東陽實業) yesterday said that it would start shipping products to SAIC Motor Corp (上海汽車) in the fourth quarter of this year in a bid to expand its presence in China.
“The new orders would help cement Tong Yang’s position in China’s auto supply chain over the coming years,” a Tong Yang official said by telephone.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the firm has also secured large orders from other leading Chinese car brands, including FAW Group Corp (第一汽車) and Changan Automobile (長安汽車).
Tong Yang’s major Chinese clients command nearly 70 percent of the market in China, the firm said.
Revenue generated by Tong Yang’s original equipment manufacturing (OEM) business in China made up 26 percent of its total sales last year, up from 24 percent in 2015, company data showed.
In response to rapid growth in demand in the OEM segment, the Tainan-based company said that it has been working on several expansion projects in China.
Its has three new plants — in Guangdong Province, Changsha City and Chongqing City — that are to begin mass production by the end of this year, Tong Yang said.
The company is also building two new joint-venture factories in Qingdao City and Tianjin City to manufacture auto parts for FAW Group.
The two joint-venture facilities are to begin operations in the first half of next year, Tong Yang said.
The company, which entered the Chinese market in 1994, has 15 OEM plants and one factory for after-sales products in China.
Cumulative investments over the past two decades in China have totaled nearly US$153 million, the firm said.
The company yesterday reported that pre-tax profit last month rose 7 percent annually from NT$203 million (US$6.74 million) to a record NT$217 million on robust customer demand.
Aggregate pre-tax income in the first eight months of the year was NT$1.90 billion, or earnings per share of NT$3.09, flat from last year’s figure, the firm said in a statement.
From January through last month, cumulative revenue increased 4.89 percent to NT$2.05 billion from NT$1.95 billion a year earlier, data showed.
Tong Yang shares edged up 0.17 percent to close at NT$57.9 on the main board yesterday.
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