Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐), a world famous dumpling house based in Taipei, reported on Monday that its profits so far this year had fallen by almost 30 percent compared with the same period last year, and that it had suspended plans to open branches in the Philippines and Thailand as a result of the economic downturn.
Din Tai Fung, which started as an innocuous-looking shop at the intersection of Yongkang Street and Xinyi Road, specializes in small, steamed pork dumplings called xiaolongbao, but its chicken soup and other dumplings are also favorites among visitors from all over the world.
The restaurant is not only a common stop for international tourists eager to sample the treats, but is also a popular gourmet eatery among Taipei residents.
It is particularly popular among Japanese tourists, including celebrities. When Japanese pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki was in Taiwan to hold a concert at Taipei Arena last year, she invited one of Din Tai Fung’s chefs to make dumplings on the spot before the show.
Another Japanese singer, Kosuke Atari, who featured in the film Cape No. 7, also mentioned his love of Din Tai Fung’s dumplings at a promotional event for the film earlier this year.
Din Tai Fung was rated as one of the top 10 gourmet restaurants in the world by the New York Times in 1993 and has branches in many countries.
It also dispatched chefs to Britain and France last year to demonstrate their culinary skills.
Over the years, the long lines of customers waiting outside the dumpling house to try the xiaolongbao and other delicacies has become a common sight, but even this Taipei institution is feeling the pinch of a weak global economy.
“The number of customers has actually dwindled,” said Hu Huei-yi (胡慧宜), head of the restaurant’s public relations section.
“Usually the restaurant is full of customers all the time, but now there’s a noticeable difference between peak and off-peak periods,” Hu said.
But despite the drop in profits, Din Tai Fung is still a profitable enterprise, Hu said.
Hu attributed the lower earnings mainly to a decline in the number of local customers, adding that statistics had shown no significant decrease in the number of tourists from other countries.
She said the restaurant’s economic resilience was a result of its diversification of services, which now includes home delivery and take-out, and its participation in food fairs and exhibitions.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS