Innolux Corp (群創) plans to further hike prices for flat panels used in mobile phones, TVs and notebook computers on the back of rebounding customer demand ahead of the electronics industry’s peak season.
However, the Miaoli County-based company’s plans come as the global LCD industry risks suffering from an oversupply in the second half of this year.
“There will be no significant improvement in the ongoing glut, even in the third quarter, which is usually a better period for the industry,” former Innolux chairman and CEO Wang Jyh-chau (王志超) said on Wednesday.
A number of panel makers are likely to see their bottom lines drift into the red soon if they cannot reduce costs to a competitive level to cope with the slump, said Wang, who now serves as a consultant to Innolux, as he is to spend more time overseeing Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) global LCD panel manufacturing businesses.
Innolux, a flat-panel manufacturing arm of Hong Hai, last month began raising prices moderately for some TV panels, as it cannot fulfill clients’ orders, vice president for TV panels Yang Chu-hsiang (楊柱祥) said.
The firm also faces a capacity squeeze for small and medium-sized panels primarily used in mobile phones and has raised prices for such panels by a single-digit percentage this quarter due to robust demand, with plans for a steeper hike next quarter as the supply constraint might worsen, vice president Jeffrey Yang (楊弘文) said.
“We do not have sufficient capacity to handle clients’ orders,” Jeffrey Yang said. “All our production lines for small and medium-sized panels are fully utilized.”
The company does not plan to significantly expand capacity this year, he said.
However, Innolux has made efforts to improve its cost structure and technological capabilities, as well as to produce panels with added value and niche market advantages, he said.
The firm was a pioneer in offering the world’s first 4K ultra-high-definition TV panels and is prepared to roll out the world’s first mini-LED panels for TVs next year and mini-LED panels for cars in 2020, he added.
Mini-LED panels deliver better color performance with identical picture definition and are significantly more affordable than organic LED panels, Innolux said.
“The industry is plagued by a supply surplus, but Innolux, due to its ability to provide differentiated products, has seen full factory utilization,” Yang Chu-hsiang 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
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained