Textile and garment manufacturer Eclat Textile Co (儒鴻) yesterday said it anticipates a significant revenue contribution from its two new brand customers next year.
“One of the two new customers is to place a NT$200 million [US$6.63 million] order for textiles next year, while another one plans to purchase nearly NT$400 million worth of garments [from Eclat],” Eclat chairman Hung Chen-hai (洪鎮海) told an investors’ conference in Taipei.
In light of growing customer demand, Hung gave an optimistic business outlook for the first half of next year, saying that the company is likely to see a rebound in sales over the period.
“We expect sales to return to 2015 levels,” he told investors, declining to elaborate on Eclat’s margin outlook and possible product portfolio for next year.
The company posted cumulative revenue of NT$11.09 billion in the first half of this year, representing a 2.88 percent decline year-on-year from NT$11.42 billion in the same period last year. The first-half figure was also 2.97 percent lower than the NT$11.43 billion registered in the same period of 2015.
Commenting on the firm’s ongoing expansion projects, Eclat said its two new garment plants in Vietnam are falling behind schedule, but the firm obtained operating permits for the facilities last month.
Once fully operational, the two Vietnamese plants are expected to make a substantial revenue contribution in the third quarter of next year, the company said, adding that the nearly 80 production lines at the sites are forecast to generate revenue of NT$3 billion per year.
Eclat said it would not build more new garment plants over the next three years, as the company’s core strategy is to pick and choose “favorable” orders instead of blindly expanding.
However, the company is in talks with some of its existing brand customers and is considering to adjust its customer portfolio in response to the emergence of e-commerce retailers in global garment supply chains, Hung said.
US e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc’s expansion into private-label activewear is beginning to show up on its Web site, with at least two new product lines — Rebel Canyon and Peak Velocity — that appear to be internal brands, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing analysis by business intelligence firm L2 Inc.
Eclat said the company, as well as local peer Makalot Industrial Co (聚陽實業), have both secured orders from Amazon. The company did not elaborate.
Meanwhile, Eclat is building a digital printing plant in Taiwan to produce more value-added products by deploying the latest printing technologies, in a bid to sustain profitability and to distinguish itself from global competitors.
The Miaoli plant, with a total construction cost of nearly NT$1 billion, is to start production in the third quarter of next year and is expected to add extra value of US$3 to each yard of textile, Eclat said.
Ahead of the investors’ conference, Eclat on Wednesday released financial results for last quarter, which showed that the company’s revenue dropped 2.56 percent to NT$6.1 billion from NT$6.26 billion a year ago and its gross margin fell to 28.4 percent from 28.73 percent.
Net profit over the period grew 8.95 percent to NT$922.07 million from NT$846.34 million, with earnings per share expanding to NT$3.36 from NT$3.1, company data showed.
Eclat vice president Roger Lo (羅仁傑) yesterday attributed the margin decline mainly to higher expenses on research and development and fluctuations in foreign exchange rates.
Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co (元大投顧) analyst Peggy Shih (施姵帆) in a note on Thursday said that the earnings result for last quarter was below her previous estimate of NT$1.147 billion.
Shih said it would take more time for Eclat to ramp up capacity for its new computer jacquard fabric product, as the company’s Vietanmese plants are falling behind schedule, affecting its sales next year.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
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