ELECTRONICS
Sinbon plans cash dividend
Sinbon Electronics Co (信邦電子), which produces cables, connectors and modems, yesterday said its board of directors had approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$4.5 per common share based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$6.26. The proposed dividend, if approved by shareholders on June 6, would represent a payout ratio of 71.88 percent. With Sinbon shares yesterday closing at NT$90.3 in Taipei, the proposed dividend translates to a yield of 4.98 percent. The company’s consolidated sales for the whole of last year rose 19.78 percent to NT$15.65 billion (US$506.5 million), the highest in its history. Net profit grew 15.25 percent annually to NT$1.41 billion, also the highest on record.
ELECTRONICS
King Yuan approves payout
IC testing service provider King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電) yesterday said that its board of directors had approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$1.35 per common share, based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$1.47. The distribution is subject to shareholders’ approval at the company’s annual general meeting scheduled for June 6. The company posted a 5.73 percent annual increase in revenue for last year at NT$20.82 billion, but net profit decreased 19.7 percent to NT$1.79 billion, affected by its acquisition of ailing Dawning Leading Technology Inc (東琳) in November last year and a slowdown in the semiconductor industry in the second half of the year.
MANUFACTURING
Topoint profit rises 7.3%
Topoint Technology Co Ltd (尖點科技), a manufacturer and supplier of precision processing tools for printed circuit boards, yesterday reported that its net profit for last year increased 7.3 percent year-on-year to NT$254 million, or earnings per share of NT$1.69. Consolidated revenue was flat from a year earlier at NT$3.28 billion. The company said that its board of directors had agreed to distribute a cash dividend of NT$1.2 per share, higher than the NT$0.4 it paid last year. The company is scheduled to hold its annual shareholders’ meeting on June 12 to sign off on the dividend proposal.
AUTOPARTS
Tong Yang profit plunges
Automotive metal sheet and bumper manufacturer Tong Yang Industry Co (東陽) yesterday reported NT$114 million in pretax profit for last month, down 55.12 percent from the previous month and 27.84 percent from a year earlier. In the first two months, cumulative pretax profit totaled NT$368 million, down 9.1 percent year-on-year. That translated into pretax earnings per share of NT$0.65, the company said in a statement. Revenue in the first two months decreased 16.1 percent year-on-year to NT$3.34 billion, mostly due to weak vehicle sales in China and fewer working days.
APPAREL
Makalot profit up 53.5%
Makalot Industrial Co Ltd (聚陽) yesterday reported that pretax profit for the first two months of the year rose 53.5 percent to NT$382.12 million from NT$248.86 million during the same period last year, thanks to rising shipments and better product prices. That translates into earnings per share of NT$1.82 based on the company’s 209 million outstanding shares, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The manufacturer of ready-to-wear apparel and functional clothing said that consolidated revenue totaled NT$4.22 billion in the first two months, a 28.7 percent increase from NT$3.28 billion a year earlier.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts