EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空) is raising its profit target for this year by 20 percent from an earlier target set last quarter to reflect the continuing decline in global crude oil prices.
“Fuel costs had originally accounted for about 40 percent of EVA’s total costs, so the declining oil prices have had a strong effect on the company’s business,” EVA chairman Chang Kuo-wei (張國煒) told a media briefing.
However, Chang said he maintained a neutral outlook for the oil price, saying that the recent plunge was “unreasonable.”
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Oil prices could possibly settle between US$60 and US$80 per barrel in the near term, he said.
EVA, Taiwan’s second-biggest carrier, reported net losses of NT$591.22 million (US$18.67 million), or NT$0.18 per share, for the first three quarters of last year. The firm’s consolidated sales totaled NT$133.09 billion last year, the highest level in the company’s history and up 7.19 percent from 2013.
EVA is more bullish about its bottom line this year and Chang said routes to the US and Japan would remain the two major drivers for the firm. The carrier plans to open two new routes and raise flight frequency on eight routes to these two regions this year, he said.
Chang said the carrier is scheduled to raise its weekly number of flights to the US to more than 80 by the end of 2017.
The company plans to focus on route or flight expansion to cities in western Japan, to cope with the increasing preference of Taiwanese travelers for those areas, he said.
Chang made the remarks after unveiling a plan to offer premium Japanese cuisine — devised by renowned chef Motokazu Nakamura — to passengers in both business and economy class on its flights from Taipei to Osaka starting on March 10.
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
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
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
RSS