E-PAPER
E Ink revenue rises
E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s largest supplier of e-paper displays for e-readers and luggage tags, yesterday posted NT$1.76 billion (US$57.48 million) in revenue for last month, up 98 percent from NT$889 million in August and an annual increase of 35.38 percent from NT$1.3 billion, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed. In the first nine months of this year, E Ink reported that aggregated revenue declined 2.93 percent annually to NT$10.17 billion from NT$10.48 billion in the same period last year. That bodes well for the firm to lift its full-year revenue forecast for this year from an earlier estimate of a 10 percent yearly reduction, analysts said.
CASINGS
Catcher reports profit fall
Catcher Technology Co (可成), a supplier of metal casings to Apple Inc, yesterday said that pretax profit dropped 3.12 percent quarterly to NT$5.9 billion last quarter, compared with pretax profit of NT$6.09 billion. Revenue surged 73 percent to NT$27.83 billion, compared with NT$16.08 billion in the second quarter, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2017. The company said gross margin last quarter was the weakest in six years at 23.1 percent, little changed from the previous quarter. In the first nine months, pretax profit sank 51.6 percent to NT$15.12 billion from NT$31.24 billion a year earlier, while revenue dropped 9.9 percent to NT$59.7 billion from NT$66.25 billion.
TECHNOLOGY
Advantech opens center
Advantech Co Ltd (研華) yesterday launched a new service center in Fukuoka, Japan, following its acquisition in February of Omron Nohgata, a subsidiary of Omron Corp. In addition, a new configure-to-order-services plant would enable the company to offer custom assembly of equipment ranging from industrial-grade small-edge, desktop, panel and rack-mounted PCs to servers, Advantech Technologies Japan president Mike Koike said in a statement. The plant would also provide custom assembly of graphics processing unit cards, factory automation cards and industrial applications, as well as other input/output cards related to artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technologies, Advantech Technologies Japan said.
STEELMAKERS
CSC revenue drops
China Steel Co (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s sole steel mill, yesterday said that revenue last month totaled NT$28.93 billion, its lowest monthly revenue in eight months amid sliding steel prices worldwide and falling demand. The Kaohsiung-based company said it did not see any signs of a rebound this quarter. On an annual basis, revenue fell 14.75 percent from NT$33.94 billion, a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange showed. In the first nine months of the year, China Steel’s cumulative revenue dropped 4.94 percent to NT$281.81 billion from NT$296.44 percent in the same period last year.
ENERGY
Wind project work advances
Assembly of the first underwater pin piles for offshore wind turbines at the Port of Taipei in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里) was completed on Saturday. Lai Wen-hsiang (賴文祥), chairman of Century Iron & Steel Industrial Co (世紀鋼構), which is contracted to do the work, said the work has become a huge business internationally in the past few years. Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany are manufacturing the products amid growing demand, Lai said. Against that backdrop, Century Iron has invested NT$6 billion in an assembly plant at the port, he 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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six