ELEVATORS
Yungtay picks new chairman
Elevator supplier Yungtay Engineering Co Ltd (永大機電) on Friday said its board of directors had elected Hsu Tso-ming (許作名) as its new chairman, replacing Su Ray-chun (許瑞鈞). Hsu was president of Yungtay Elevator Equipment (China) Co Ltd (永大電梯設備). The personnel change, effective immediately, came after shareholders on April 18 voted to reshuffle the board of directors, as some investors were opposed to a Hitachi Ltd public tender offer for the Taiwanese firm. Hitachi holds a 39.7 percent stake in Yungtay after the tender offer.
NOTEBOOKS
Global sales dip 15%
Global notebook computer shipments not including detachable models fell 15 percent quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter, Digitimes Research said on Friday. The decline was due to notebook vendors adjusting their inventories and a shortage of Intel Corp CPUs that dragged down end-market demand, the Taipei-based research house said. Shipments for this quarter, however, could increase 15 percent quarterly as brand vendors launch new Chromebook models and adopt Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s CPUs instead, Digitimes said.
STEEL
CSC income down 13%
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼) last week reported an operating income drop of 13 percent to NT$5.25 billion (US$169.86 million) in the first quarter, from NT$6.04 last year. Pretax income declined 10 percent from NT$5.74 billion to NT$5.13 billion, it said in a regulatory filing. Revenue grew 3 percent to NT$96.23 billion in the first quarter due to an increase in March sales. CSC said rising prices in raw materials of coal and steel cut into profits, resulting in the poor first-quarter performance.
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