Inventec Corp (英業達) aims to increase annual revenue by 10 percent this year, as the company expects growing sales in smart handheld devices and solar power, chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday.
The contract electronics maker last year posted annual revenue of NT$395.46 billion (US$11.73 billion), a 9.23 percent decrease from NT$435.67 billion a year earlier, dragged down mainly by overall soft demand in the PC industry last year.
“Sales this year are expected to increase in tandem with the expanding businesses of smart handheld devices and solar modules and cells,” Inventec chief financial officer Yu Chin-pao (游進寶) told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference before the firm’s annual weiya (尾牙) banquet for its employees at the Nangang Exhibition Hall in Taipei.
Inventec personal solutions group president Fred Chang (張輝) said the company plans to defy the industry’s downward trend by growing by a single-digit percentage in PC shipments this year from last year’s 19 million units.
“While the industry might experience another year of annual decline in notebook computer shipments, Inventec will continue strategic partnerships with the industry’s top clients and focus on commercial notebook products to buck the trend,” Chang said.
Inventec’s PC segments accounted for 45 percent of its total revenue last year, according to the company.
Inventec Appliance Corp (英華達), which is in charge of Inventec’s smart handheld and wearable device business, plans to boost its total shipments by 40 percent from last year’s 50 million units to 70 million units this year, Inventec Appliance CEO David Ho (何代水) said.
“We have secured 20 clients this year, with Xiaomi Inc’s (小米) orders to account for 50 percent, or 35 million units, of our total shipments this year,” Ho said.
The smart handheld device segment contributed between 10 percent and 15 percent to last year’s total revenue, Yu said, adding that sales contribution from the segment could continue rising this year.
Due to a diversified base of international clients, the outlook for Inventec’s solar power business this year is promising, Inventec Solar Energy Corp (英穩達) CEO Harry Hsieh (謝瑞海) said.
“Inventec’s solar modules and cells are in short supply until at least the third quarter of this year due to strong demand worldwide,” Hsieh said.
As part of efforts to bring positive change to the company, Inventec plans to allocate NT$60 million to encourage employees to devote themselves to technological innovation and creativity, double last year’s NT$30 million, Lee said.
The company also plans to be more aggressive in the Internet of Things sector this year, with an eye toward investing in start-ups and recruiting more talent in the field, Lee said, without elaborating.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
DOLLAR CHALLENGE: BRICS countries’ growing share of global GDP threatens the US dollar’s dominance, which some member states seek to displace for world trade US president-elect Donald Trump on Saturday threatened 100 percent tariffs against a bloc of nine nations if they act to undermine the US dollar. His threat was directed at countries in the so-called BRICS alliance, which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have applied to become members and several other countries have expressed interest in joining. While the US dollar is by far the most-used currency in global business and has survived past challenges to its preeminence, members of the alliance and other developing nations say they are fed
TECH COMPETITION: The US restricted sales of two dozen types of manufacturing equipment and three software tools, and blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities US President Joe Biden’s administration unveiled new restrictions on China’s access to vital components for chips and artificial intelligence (AI), escalating a campaign to contain Beijing’s technological ambitions. The US Department of Commerce slapped additional curbs on the sale of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and chipmaking gear, including that produced by US firms at foreign facilities. It also blacklisted 140 more Chinese entities that it accused of acting on Beijing’s behalf, although it did not name them in an initial statement. Full details on the new sanctions and Entity List additions were to be published later yesterday, a US official said. The US “will
COLLABORATION: The operations center shows the close partnership between Taiwan and Japan in the field of semiconductors, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo said Tokyo Electron Ltd, Asia’s biggest semiconductor equipment supplier, yesterday launched a NT$2 billion (US$61.5 million) operations center in Tainan as it aims to expand capacity and meet growing demand. Its new Taiwan Operations Center is expected to help customers release their products faster, boost production efficiency and shorten equipment repair time in a cost-effective way, the company said. The center is about a five-minute drive from the factories of its major customers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) advanced 3-nanometer and 2-nanometer fabs. The operations center would have about 1,000 employees when it is fully utilized, the company
RSS