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.
After several years flying high as Asia’s best Nvidia Corp proxy, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is increasingly vying with other artificial intelligence (AI) stocks for investor attention. Stock traders are chasing a wider array of beneficiaries as mainstream usage of AI creates demand for hardware beyond the most-advanced chips TSMC makes for Nvidia. Subthemes from the deepening memory crunch to advances in robotics are also luring bids. At the same time, investment caps on single stocks are pushing funds to diversify, while retail investors long familiar with TSMC through its US depositary receipts are being offered a broader set of
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS