King Yuan builds new plant
King Yuan Electronics Co (京元電子), an integrated circuit testing service provider, yesterday broke ground for its second plant in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Industrial Park (銅鑼科學園區), after its first plant in the park began mass production earlier this year.
King Yuan chairman Lee Chin-kung (李金恭) said the first plant brought about 600 jobs to the area and the new one is expected to add several hundred more.
The second plant, which is expected to be completed by the end of next year, is to provide wafer-testing services for microelectromechanical systems sensor and system-on-a-chip processor, the company said
UMC revenue rises 11.5%
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the nation’s second-largest contract chipmaker, yesterday reported its revenue last month had risen from a year earlier, but fallen from the previous month, as the semiconductor industry was entering a seasonal adjustment.
Consolidated revenue last month increased 11.5 percent year-on-year to NT$11.54 billion (US$368.6 million), but dropped 14.52 percent from October, UMC said in a statement.
The monthly drop last month came after UMC reported a record consolidated revenue of NT$13.5 billion in October.
In the first 11 months of the year, cumulative revenue totaled NT$127.81 billion on a consolidated basis, up 12.2 percent from the same period last year, the Hsinchu-based company said.
Compal revenue rises 24.97%
Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), the world’s second-largest notebook contract maker by revenue, yesterday posted consolidated revenue of NT$82.45 billion last month, up 24.97 percent from a year earlier and 1.61 percent higher than the previous month, as the company’s core notebook business grew steadily in line with industry trends.
Compal shipped 4.1 million laptops last month, compared with 3.6 million in October, it said.
Total revenue for the first 11 months was NT$762.88 billion, up 21.47 percent from the same period of last year, it said.
Hiring outlook remains strong
The nation’s hiring outlook for the first quarter of next year remains strong, with the net employment outlook ranking the second-highest worldwide, according to a survey released by ManpowerGroup yesterday.
In the survey, ManpowerGroup said that Taiwan’s net employment outlook for the January-March period after seasonal adjustments stood at 43 percent, trailing only India’s 45 percent.
The international human resource company said that after interviewing 1,118 employers in Taiwan, 40 percent of them have plans to expand their workforce, while 3 percent want to downsize in the first quarter and 53 percent said they will leave their workforce unchanged in the coming quarter.
Formosa gains on share sale
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC, 台塑石化), the nation’s only private oil refiner, yesterday said it made an investment gain of NT$136.9 million by selling 4.22 million shares in DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) at NT$71.65 per share between Friday last week and yesterday.
On Dec. 2, Formosa Petrochemical said it planned to sell 6.53 million Nanya Technology shares to strengthen its working capital. The announcement came as Formosa Petrochemical faces falling revenue affected by declining global crude oil prices, while Nanya Technology’s business is on a steady recovery this year.
Accton posts NT$2.09 revenue
Accton Technology Corp (智邦科技), a local maker of computer network equipment such as routers, yesterday reported consolidated revenue of NT$2.09 billion for last month, up 4.13 percent year-on-year and 21.72 percent month-on-month.
By product, network switches accounted for 62.18 percent of the company’s sales last month, carrier access solutions made up 24 percent, wireless local area networks 4.89 percent, broadband and gateway devices 3.39 percent and others 5.54 percent.
For the first 11 months of the year, cumulative revenue increased 0.64 percent to NT$20.36 billion, the firm said.
CTBC overseas offices approved
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has approved CTBC Bank Co (中國信託銀行) to file an application to Australia and Malaysia respectively, in a bid to set up representative offices in Sydney and Kuala Lumpur. The lender has 100 overseas operations.
CTBC said the move may help it collect local business information via the office, and further seek opportunities to expand its banking business in the two nations.
Five Taiwanese banks have branches in Australia, while only two — state-run Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商業銀行) and Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) — have branches in Malaysia, FSC data showed.
Xiaomi launches air purifier
Xiaomi Corp (小米) unveiled a home air purifier that sends pollution readings to users as the Chinese smartphone maker seeks to address concerns about air quality while widening its line of consumer electronics.
The purifier can be controlled by a smartphone and it alerts users when its filter needs to be replaced, Xiaomi founder and chief executive officer Lei Jun (雷軍) said yesterday at a press conference at the company’s Beijing headquarters.
It will sell for 899 yuan (US$145) and deliver as much as 406m3 of clean air an hour, he said.
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said
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