Motech Industries Inc (茂迪) yesterday said it plans to eliminate more than 300 contract jobs soon to reduce costs and would not rule out cutting full-time positions, as the solar cell maker struggles to ride out a severe slump in the industry.
The workforce reduction started when Motech shut down a solar wafer production line in June — affecting 160 employees — to stem losses, as market demand weakened when solar installations in China began to slow in June.
“To quickly respond to market changes, the company will adjust personnel based on customer orders and required production capacity. The company’s goal is to streamline operations,” Tainan-based Motech said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Motech plans to scale down operations to improve competitiveness and financial performance in a depressed market, the company said.
“Foreign contract employees will be affected by the workforce adjustment, as they mostly supplement existing personnel,” it said.
Shares in Motech plunged 1.87 percent to NT$9.45 in Taipei trading yesterday after the company disclosed the job cuts.
The company reported that cumulative losses in the first half of the year widened to NT$3.14 billion (US$101.93 million), or NT$5.84 per share, compared with losses of NT$1.7 billion in the same period last year.
Motech has been in the red since 2014.
TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) yesterday forecast Taiwan’s solar installation market would expand at an annual compound growth rate of 303 percent to 4 gigawatts by 2025, with an estimated 850 to 920 megawatts installed this year.
Strong growth is expected on the back of the government’s green energy policy, which encourages the installation of solar panels on the roofs of farm buildings and in fallow fields.
Neo Solar Power Energy Corp (新日光能源) became the nation’s biggest solar module supplier by module capacity in the first half of the year, outranking AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), TrendForce added.
Newly established Taiwan Solar Energy Corp (元晶太陽能) and Taiwan Solar Module Manufacturing Co (TSMMC, 台灣太陽能模組製造) are expected to rank second and third respectively in the second half of the year thanks to increased production, while AUO should fall to fourth place, TrendForce said.
TSMMC, a joint venture between Motech and Giga Solar Materials Corp (碩禾), was formed in April.
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
China is clamping down on fertilizer exports to protect its domestic market, industry sources said, putting an additional strain on global markets that were already grappling with shortages caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. China is among the largest fertilizer exporters — shipping more than US$13 billion of it last year — and it has a history of controlling exports to keep prices low for farmers. Shipments through the war-blocked Strait of Hormuz account for about one-third of the sea-borne supply. This month, Beijing banned exports of nitrogen-potassium fertilizer blends and certain phosphate varieties, sources said. The ban, which has not
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
RSS