ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai to have US HQ
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) said it is to establish a US headquarters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as part of a massive investment it is making in an electronics manufacturing plant in the southeast of the state. The company, known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康) internationally, on Tuesday said it is to purchase a seven-story building in downtown Milwaukee that has a capacity of 650 people. The building, to be called Foxconn Place, is to house business incubators and start-up initiatives, as well as Foxconn staff. The company is building a plant in Racine County to make LCD panels for commercial and consumer uses.
ENERGY
Storage first for Changhua
Danish energy company Orsted A/S yesterday announced it is to set up an energy storage facility with capacity of 1 megawatt (MW) in Changhua County, the first MW-sized energy storage system based on lithium-ion battery technology in Taiwan. “I believe Taiwan has great potential to become a ‘green’ energy hub in Asia, just like Denmark’s position in Europe. The energy storage project in Changhua, also our first storage in Asia, will enhance grid efficiency and stability,” Orsted wind power chief executive officer Martin Neubert said in a news release. Through collaboration with the Changhua County Government, Taiwan Power Co (台電), the Industrial Technology Research Institute (工研院) and National Changhua University of Education, the project aims to encourage energy storage research and green energy development in Taiwan, the company said.
ELECTRONICS
CHPT net income up 22%
Chunghwa Precision Test Technology Co (CHPT, 中華精測), the nation’s largest probe card supplier, yesterday reported that net income last year increased 22 percent year-on-year to NT$736 million (US$25.1 million), with earnings per share of NT$23.51, up from NT$20.04 the previous year and the highest in company history. Gross margin also grew to 55.4 percent from 52.2 percent, while revenue rose 20 percent to NT$3.11 billion, the company said. To reward shareholders, the Taoyuan-based company said its board has approved the distribution of a cash dividend of NT$10 per common share.
GAMING
IGS income beats prediction
International Games System Co (IGS, 鈊象電子), the nation’s largest arcade and online game developer, on Tuesday reported better-than-expected net income of NT$877.78 million for last year, with earnings per share of NT$12.55. The results were down from 2016’s NT$890.37 million, or NT$12.78 per share, but gross margin improved from 80 percent to 85 percent. Revenue decreased 1.33 percent year-on-year to NT$3.28 billion, slightly affected by the ending of a deal with Aristocrat Leisure Ltd in June last year to codevelop slot machines.
ELECTRONICS
Wafer shipments up 10%
Global silicon wafer shipments last year increased 10 percent from a year earlier in terms of surface area, the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) said in a news release on Tuesday. Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for semiconductors. According to SMG’s analysis, total silicon wafer area shipments were 11,810 million square inches last quarter, up from the 10,738 million square inches shipped the previous year. Worldwide silicon wafer revenue increased 21 percent to US$8.71 billion last year from US$7.21 billion in 2016, SMG’s analysis showed.
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
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the