The biggest units of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) reported an increase in first--quarter pretax profits after the March 11 earthquake disrupted petrochemical production in Japan.
Pretax profits at the group’s four biggest units, including Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), rose 69 percent from a year earlier to NT$72.7 billion (US$2.5 billion) in the three months ending on March 31, the industrial group said in a statement yesterday.
“Japan’s petrochemical industry is in competition with Taiwan, [South] Korea and China,” said Max Chan, a Taipei-based analyst at Capital Securities Corp (群益證券), who has a “neutral” rating on the FPG units. “As output in Japan is disrupted, products from the countries can be substitutes.”
Japanese producers of ethylene, an ingredient in plastics and detergents, had 23 percent of their capacity shut following the earthquake and ensuing tsunami, Chemical Market Associates Inc said in a report on March 24. The report said 37 percent of Japan’s polyethylene plastic capacity was also cut and 46 percent of the country’s polyvinyl chloride (PVC) capacity was halted.
PVC maker Formosa Plastics Corp’s first-quarter pretax profits gained 86 percent to NT$16.8 billion, its parent company said. Plastics processor Nan Ya Plastics Corp’s (南亞塑膠) profits climbed 52 percent to NT$15.5 billion on a pretax basis. Chemical producer Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp’s (台灣化學纖維) pretax profits rose 79 percent to a record NT$20.4 billion.
Oil refiner Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) increased profits by 60 percent to NT$20.1 billion before taxes, the group said in the statement.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS