Cash-strapped LCD panel maker Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (CPT, 中華映管) yesterday said it has laid off 63 people as it faces mounting pressure to repay debts.
The development came after CPT two weeks ago shut down factories and applied for restructuring due to imminent debt distress.
The company has not made any significant strides in negotiating with its creditors to pay back bank loans totaling NT$12.7 billion (US$412.2 million).
“The company eliminated 63 jobs as we continue feeling a financial squeeze. It has to cut operating expenses to cope with financial difficulties,” a company public relations official said by telephone. “Employees not directly linked to the company’s operations were affected first.”
The layoffs were also based on employees’ annual performance reviews, the official said, adding that affected workers were from various areas, including procurement and project management.
The official declined to comment on speculation that CPT plans to cut more jobs after the Lunar New Year holiday in February, saying: “We have not yet received such information.”
CPT, a major mobile phone flat panel supplier, posted losses of NT$1.28 billion for last month, reversing net profit of NT$1.12 billion in the same period last year, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Saturday said.
As of the end of September, CPT had incurred losses of NT$63.9 billion.
The company on Saturday restored operations at its two fabs in Taoyuan after gas supplier Linde LienHwa Industrial Gases Co (聯華林德) resumed supply.
CPT’s restructuring has caused a ripple effect.
Shares of United Integrated Services Co Ltd (漢唐), which helped build clean rooms for CPT, yesterday tumbled 3.84 percent in early trading, as the panel maker defaulted on its payments.
United Integrated Services had spent NT$49.88 million on the rooms, it said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Monday.
The defaulted payment accounted for 0.24 percent of the company’s consolidated assets, it added.
United Integrated Services would seek to recoup the payment in any way possible to minimize the impact and would consider taking legal action if the situation worsens, the filing said.
Shares of United Integrated Services closed down 2.75 percent at NT$88.5 after regaining some momentum.
However, shares of CPT dropped 9.38 percent to NT$0.58.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to