Electric scooter maker Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) yesterday said that sales last month hit a record high of 22,750 units, helping it remain the nation’s No. 2 vendor with a 21.27 percent market share.
The Taoyuan-based company’s aggregated sales last year reached 145,678 units — an all-time high, it said in a statement.
Since 2015, Gogoro has sold 274,623 electric scooters, including those it assembled for Yamaha Motor Co of Japan, Aeon Motor Co (宏佳騰), Motive Power Industry Co (摩特動力) and Suzuki Motor Corp.
In Taiwan last year, electric scooters made up 18.63 percent of total scooter sales, compared with 9.5 percent a year earlier, the company said.
More manufacturers are expected to join the electric scooter market and launch new models this year, which would speed up the shift from fossil fuel-powered vehicles, Gogoro said.
“With the proliferation of battery swapping stations and the number of new members in the ‘Powered by Gogoro Network,’ Taiwan led the world in replacing fossil fuel-powered scooters with electric models in 2019,” chief marketing executive Chen Yen-yang (陳彥揚) said in the statement.
The momentum should extend into this year, Chen added.
Gogoro said that the number of battery swapping stations nationwide rose to 1,500 last year from 1,292 a year earlier.
The company said it expects new government subsidies to encourage 5 million people to switch from fossil fuel-powered scooters to electric scooters, meeting the government’s phase 7 emission standards, which reduce toxic emissions considerably from phase 6.
Under the two-year program, people would receive subsidies of up to NT$24,000 from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), the Industrial Development Bureau and local governments when they replace older scooters with new environmentally friendly models.
As of yesterday, the bureau’s subsidy was reduced by 30 percent to NT$7,000 per vehicle from NT$10,000, while the EPA’s NT$5,000 subsidy applies to new electric scooters and fossil fuel-powered scooters that satisfy the phase 7 emission standards.
GoShare, Gogoro’s ride-sharing service, on Tuesday said that it has signed up 400,000 members since its launch about three months ago.
Local rivals Wemo Corp (威摩科技) and Hotai Leasing Corp (和運租車) had as of Oct. 31 last year signed up 250,000 members and 210,000 members respectively.
Wemo, which provides ride-sharing services in Taipei, New Taipei City and Kaohsiung, expects its membership to double to 600,000 this year, the company said in October.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
Handset camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) on Sunday reported a 6.71 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for the third quarter, despite revenue last month hitting the highest level in 11 months. Third-quarter revenue was NT$17.68 billion (US$581.2 million), compared with NT$18.95 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. The figure was in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$17.9 billion, but missed the market consensus estimate of NT$18.97 billion. The third-quarter revenue was a 51.44 percent increase from NT$11.67 billion in the second quarter, as the quarter is usually the peak
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Pegatron Corp (和碩), a key assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhones, on Thursday reported a 12.3 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for last quarter to NT$257.86 billion (US$8.44 billion), but it expects revenue to improve in the second half on traditional holiday demand. The fourth quarter is usually the peak season for its communications products, a company official said on condition of anonymity. As Apple released its new iPhone 17 series early last month, sales in the communications segment rose sequentially last month, the official said. Shipments to Apple have been stable and in line with earlier expectations, they said. Pegatron shipped 2.4 million notebook
RSS