LISTED COMPANIES
Revenue increases 0.98%
Local listed companies last month posted total combined revenue of NT$3.096 trillion (US$103.4 billion), up 0.98 percent year-on-year, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said yesterday. The bourse said that 535 companies posted higher revenue, while 406 reported a decline. Accumulated annual revenue of all listed companies last year was NT$32.767 trillion, a 0.04 percent decrease year-on-year, with 449 posting higher revenue and 492 experiencing a decline, the exchange said in a statement. The main sectors posting increased revenue were information services, biotechnology and medical care, and semiconductors. Sectors that reported a decline were electrical appliances and cables, electric machinery, and fuel, electricity and gas companies.
EMPLOYMENT
Growth hits 10-year low
The average number of people in work between January and November last year was 7.96 million, up 91,000, or 1.15 percent, from the same period the previous year, the slowest growth in 10 years, largely due to changing demographics, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said in a report on Friday last week. During the 11-month period, the average number of people employed in the manufacturing industry was up 10,000 year-on-year, including a 5,000 increase in the computer, electronics and optoelectronics sectors, while the average number of people employed in retail industry rose by 10,000, the report showed. The electronics industry has largely benefited from companies shifting production back to Taiwan to avoid higher US tariffs on Chinese-made goods, the report said.
COMPUTERS
Restructuring pays off
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) has continued to reap the benefits of a restructuring which started in the second half of last year, after revenue last month grew year-on-year for the sixth straight month. Consolidated revenue increased 6 percent year-on-year to NT$32.7 billion, with fourth-quarter revenue increasing 7 percent to NT$97.2 billion, the highest in five quarters, Asustek said last week. Annual revenue last year fell 0.81 percent to NT$351.3 billion, the company said. Asustek has forecast 15 to 20 percent year-on-year growth of sales of its gaming PCs this year and plans to increasingly use Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) chips this year as Intel Corp has yet to resolve its shortage. At CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, last week, Asustek unveiled new gaming PCs equipped with AMD’s new Ryzen chips.
AUTO PARTS
Iron Force revenue grows
Auto parts maker Iron Force Industrial Co (劍麟) posted consolidated revenue of NT$396.27 million for last month, a 14.5 percent increase year-on-year. “Revenue growth in December was mainly due to the good performance of shipments of three main automotive safety products, which boosted the company’s factory utilization rate to a high level,” the company said in a statement on Thursday last week. Steady growth in shipments of automotive safety parts and store display fixtures saw revenue for last year increase 8.8 percent to NT$4.6 billion, from NT$4.23 billion the previous year, the company said. “The two business segments made great contributions to the company’s revenue in 2019 and helped buck a downward trend in the industry,” Iron Force said in the statement.
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
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],”