MOBILE
Ichia revenue falls 30%
Handset keypad maker Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉科技) on Friday reported revenue of NT$377 million (US$12.25 million) for last month, up 0.03 percent from a year earlier, but a decline of 30 percent from the previous month, due to fewer working days during the Lunar New Year holiday. Last month’s revenue included about NT$294 million in sales from flexible printed circuit integrated components and about NT$84 million from mechanical integrated components, the company said. Cumulative revenue in the first two months of this year decreased 6.28 percent year-on-year to NT$917.45 million, Ichia said.
RETAIL
Forever 21 closing last store
Los Angeles-based fast fashion brand Forever 21 has decided to pull out of Taiwan at the end of this month after closing its last outlet near Taipei’s Zhongxiao Dunhua MRT Station, affecting 58 jobs. In a letter to employees revealed on Friday, the retailer said that business in Taiwan has not been good in the past few years and that it would shutter the Zhongxiao outlet on March 31. The retailer entered Taiwan in June 2015 and launched its first outlet in Taipei’s prime Xinyi District (信義). It closed the Xinyi outlet in September last year when the lease expired.
ELECTRONICS
Xiaomi GM likely leaving
Xiaomi Taiwan general manager Henman Lee (李佳峰) is reportedly exiting the company after more than five years of working at the Chinese smartphone brand, local media reported on Friday, citing market speculation. Lee’s post is likely to be filled by Janine Luo (羅燕), head of Xiaomi’s Hong Kong and US operations, the reports said. Xiaomi Taiwan declined to comment on Lee’s departure or his successor.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure