The combined revenue of Formosa Plastics Group’s (FPG, 台塑集團) four major subsidiaries last month shrank to its lowest in three years as demand remained weak amid global uncertainty, stock exchange filings showed yesterday.
The combined revenue of Formosa Petrochemical Co (FPCC, 台塑石化), Formosa Plastics Corp (FPC, 台塑), Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) and Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (FCFC, 台灣化纖) totaled NT$110.1 billion (US$3.6 billion), slumping 22.1 percent from November last year and 2.3 percent from a month earlier, the companies said.
Although the US and China in October agreed to put off new tariff hikes, they have not inked a deal yet, keeping the world mired in unease and discouraging inventory expansion, the filings said.
The nation’s largest industrial group voiced doubt about business improvement this quarter or next quarter.
The oil refinery arm reported NT$46.31 billion in revenue for last month, a drop of 27.6 percent year-on-year to its lowest this year, FPCC said.
That was linked to oil prices falling by US$6.1 a barrel from a year earlier, weighed by cheaper international crude, the company said, adding that it cut production to cope with the slowdown.
In the first 11 months, FPCC accumulated NT$593.1 billion in revenue, a 16.2 percent retreat from a year earlier.
FCFC, which manufactures integrated plastic and nylon products, fared worse with a 28.7 percent plunge in revenue to NT$23.93 billion last month, the company said.
Continued market languidness and price corrections were to blame for the poor showing, it said.
The flagship unit, FPC, had monthly revenue of NT$16.32 billion, down 11.9 percent from a year earlier, it said.
Downstream firms remained generally conservative about the business outlook, while peers in China ended maintenance leave and increased supply, adding pressure on selling prices, it said.
FPC’s revenue last month was NT$192.1 billion, a 9.4 percent drop from a year earlier, it said.
Nan Ya Plastics, which makes plastics, chemicals and electronics materials, reported NT$23.54 billion in revenue, a 7.2 percent fall from a year earlier, it said.
The figure was 2.7 percent lower than in October, it said.
A downturn in material prices persisted, except for electronics materials, it said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to