Automaker Honda Taiwan Co (台灣本田) yesterday said it plans to invest NT$4 billion (US$129.9 million) over five years to add new manufacturing equipment to its plant in Pingtung for the production of new models.
The investment is part of the company’s efforts to boost vehicle sales through expanding its showrooms and enhancing maintenance services.
The plant, which had an initial investment of NT$2.1 billion, started producing Honda vehicles in 2002.
Photo: AP
“We are activating [a new] investment plan in 2019, with the aim to deepen our presence in the Taiwanese market,” Honda Taiwan chairman Takato Ito told an annual media gathering.
Honda Taiwan, which plans to unveil a revamped Honda HR-V model next quarter, said its vehicle sales increased 14 percent year-on-year to 38,822 units last year, a second year of growth.
The company seized a 8.8 percent share of local market last year on the back of strong sales of recreational models such as the CR-V and HR-V.
Vehicle sales this year are forecast to drop 4.7 percent to 37,000 units, given weakening economic growth and conservative private consumption, Ito said.
Overall, the market is likely to see sales fall about 3.5 percent to 420,000 units this year from 435,135 units last year, he said.
“It is a year full of uncertainty,” Ito said.
Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) in November last year lowered its vehicle sales forecast for this year to 425,000 units as consumers are cautious about purchasing new vehicles amid economic uncertainty and US-China trade tensions.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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