MANUFACTURING
Hiwin growth forecast
Machinery maker Hiwin Technologies Co (上銀) could achieve double-digit growth in annual revenue this year, with the second half of the year likely to be better than the first half, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported on Saturday, citing company chairman Eric Chuo’s (卓永財) remarks at a Lunar New Year banquet for employees. The company has purchased land in Japan, Italy and China in preparation for capacity expansion and has set an annaul revenue target of NT$60 billion (US$1.95 billion), the newspaper said. Hiwin’s consolidated revenue grew 38.8 percent year-on-year to NT$29.39 billion last year, a record high.
CAMERA LENSES
Largan buys Taichung plot
Largan Precision Co (大立光) has purchased a plot of land and a building on it near its headquarters in the Taichung Industrial Park as part of plans to expand production capacity. The smartphone camera lens supplier on Friday said it spent NT$1.82 billion on the purchase from Leadwell CNC Machines Manufacturing Corp (台灣麗偉電腦). The plan to expand production capacity echoed remarks made by Largan chief executive officer Adam Lin (林恩平) last week that smartphone designs continue to trend toward triple-camera configurations, sustaining demand for lenses.
INVESTMENT
AGV Products inks loan deal
Food manufacturer AGV Products Corp (愛之味) has inked contracts with 10 local banks for a NT$1.7 billion loan to fund working capital and repay debt, according to a regulatory filing on Saturday. The loan was arranged by state-run Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行). AGV reported consolidated revenue increased 4.58 percent to NT$4.32 billion last year, compared with NT$4.13 billion in 2017.
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