Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械), the world’s largest bicycle manufacturer, said yesterday the shopping rush for bicycles in some quake-affected areas in Japan will strain the supply of bicycles on the market.
Media reports have said bicycles were sold out in some disaster areas in Japan, including Tokyo.
“The earthquake will definitely increase demand for bicycles for a period of time, but it will also lead to supply problems,” Giant Manufacturing chairman King Liu (劉金標) said on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the Taipei International Cycle Show, which will run through Saturday at the Taipei World Trade Center’s Nangang Exhibition Hall.
Photo: Reuters
“The temporary demand is not good for the whole industry and our company because we have operated with the expectation of a balance between the market supply and demand,” he said.
Although Giant is taking emergency measures to increase the bicycle supply to Japan, the company still faces difficulties meeting the heightened demand, Liu said.
Giant sells 1 million bicycles to Japan a year, representing roughly 10 percent of Japan’s annual import of bicycles, he said.
Japan is the fifth-largest export destination for Taiwanese bicycles, accounting for 5.36 percent of exports last year, behind the US (21.45 percent), the Netherlands (13.05 percent), Britain (12.73 percent) and Germany (8.41 percent).
Last year, shipments of Taiwan’s assembled bicycles rose 17.87 percent to 5.07 million units from the previous year, with total revenue growing 20.24 percent to NT$44.25 billion (US$1.5 billion), according to the Bureau of Foreign Trade.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said its materials management head, Vanessa Lee (李文如), had tendered her resignation for personal reasons. The personnel adjustment takes effect tomorrow, TSMC said in a statement. The latest development came one month after Lee reportedly took leave from the middle of last month. Cliff Hou (侯永清), senior vice president and deputy cochief operating officer, is to concurrently take on the role of head of the materials management division, which has been under his supervision, TSMC said. Lee, who joined TSMC in 2022, was appointed senior director of materials management and
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Thursday met with US President Donald Trump at the White House, days before a planned trip to China by the head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, people familiar with the matter said. Details of what the two men discussed were not immediately available, and the people familiar with the meeting declined to elaborate on the agenda. Spokespeople for the White House had no immediate comment. Nvidia declined to comment. Nvidia’s CEO has been vocal about the need for US companies to access the world’s largest semiconductor market and is a frequent visitor to China.
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STABLE RESULTS: Despite June’s lower consolidated revenue, second-quarter sales still reached a record high, driven by demand for chips for AI applications Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales of NT$263.71 billion (US$9.02 billion) for last month, its second-lowest monthly result this year. The world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement that its revenue last month only fared better than the NT$260.01 billion posted in February. Last month’s figure rose 26.9 percent from a year earlier, but slumped 17.7 percent from May, the company said. However, second-quarter revenue reached NT$933.8 billion, a record high for a single quarter, company data showed. The figure represented growth of 11.26 percent from the first quarter and 38.6 percent from a year earlier. Previously, TSMC said that
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