Leading carbon fiber racket and hockey stick maker Bonny Worldwide Ltd (波力集團) on Friday said that it plans to start production of newly developed composite rims for vehicles this month, aiming to sell about 6,000 this year.
“We plan to begin mass production next month in Zhejiang Province’s Tongxiang, with shipments starting in September,” a public relations official told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Carbon fiber rims would contribute to sales more steadily compared with hockey sticks and badminton and tennis rackets, as sports equipment has low seasons, the official said.
The new rims have earned international certification, she said, adding that they are lighter and harder than ordinary rims.
Bonny last year manufactured 1.19 million carbon fiber sticks and rackets, compared with 1.26 million the previous year, company data showed.
It is the world’s largest maker of hockey sticks, accounting of 40 percent of the global market, the company said in its annual report.
In China, Bonny is among the top four badminton racket brands, with a market share of 8 percent.
The firm said that revenue for the first six months declined 2.18 percent annually to NT$765.24 million (US$24.65 million), from NT$782.27 million a year earlier, although last month’s revenue climbed 25.61 percent year-on-year to a record NT$227.58 million.
Bonny attributed last month’s increase to a record 180,000 units shipped after orders in May were delayed to last month, while this month’s orders were frontloaded.
North American markets, especially the US, accounted for 90.76 percent of the company’s sales last year, while China made up 7.06 percent, with Taiwan and other nations contributing 2.18 percent, the company said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”