Formosa Plastics Group’s (FPG, 台塑集團) four major units reported disappointing sales for last month, as product prices dropped further amid languid demand.
Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (FCFC, 台灣化學纖維), which manufactures integrated plastic and nylon products, saw sales decline 28.62 percent annually and 5.36 percent monthly to NT$25.99 billion (US$831.5 million), as its major products’ prices declined by more than US$200 per tonne compared with a year earlier, company vice chairman Hong Fu-yuan (洪福源) told a media briefing in Taipei.
The company’s No. 3 aromatics plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) and its Vietnamese plant also underwent annual maintainance, which affected shipments of plastics and nylon products, he said.
“Longer maintenance at our plants will make sales this quarter lower annually and quarterly,” Hong said, but added that next quarter would be better as utilization rates would return to normal.
Demand for daily necessities was robust, as shipments of chemical products, such as terephthalic acid and polybutylene succinate, increased this year, he said.
This should help ease the effect of seasonality, he said.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC, 台塑石化), the group’s oil refinery arm, said that shipments of refined petroleum products softened by 981,000 barrels from a year earlier and 377,000 barrels from July.
That led to a 23.46 percent decline in revenue to NT$53.48 billion last month from a year earlier or 6.28 percent from July, company data showed.
Sales of olefins products fell 35.8 percent annually and 14.9 percent monthly due to weaker product prices and lower utilization rates, FPCC president Tsao Minh (曹明) said.
However, “spreads of refining oil have been stable at US$8 per barrel recently, while shipments of olefins should pick up gradually after the end of maintenance. Sales should improve next quarter if crude oil prices remain stable,” Tsao said.
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), which makes plastics products, chemicals and electronics materials, saw revenue fall 19.83 percent annually and 3.18 percent monthly to NT$23.78 billion, as the prices of its two main chemical products — ethylene glycol and bisphenol-A — shrank 42.7 percent and 38.6 percent respectively compared with a year earlier, company data showed.
The company’s polyester and electronics revenue also tumbled due to poor demand as the US-China trade dispute lingers, Nan Ya chairman Wu Chia-chau (吳嘉昭) said.
“Sales are likely to remain at similar levels this month ... and next quarter would be flat from this quarter,” Wu said.
Electronics and plastic products revenue are forecast to rise, which could mitigate the decline in the chemicals business, he added.
The company expects shipments of electronic materials, such as printed circuit boards, to grow on the back of rapid expansion of 5G base stations in China, he said.
Sales at Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC, 台塑), which makes intermediate raw materials for plastics, such as polyvinyl chloride and vinyl chloride, decreased 14.38 percent annually and 3.2 percent monthly to NT$16.95 billion, mainly due to sharp price declines, FPC president and chairman Jason Lin (林健男) said.
Shipments of polyethylene products also slumped as three plants in Mailiao underwent maintenance, while shipments of ethylene-vinyl acetate rose as its competitors in Asia underwent maintenance, he said.
Sales this month are forecast to drop as five additional plants would undergo maintenance, Lin said, adding that he is conservative about next quarter in light of a supply glut and slow demand.
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