Overall car sales nationwide would shrink about 2.3 percent this year as consumers tend to reduce spending on big-ticket items during economic slowdowns, Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車) said yesterday.
The nation’s top vehicle vendor, cited softer economic growth worldwide and at home for its conservative forecast.
Economic risks are on the rise as US-China trade tensions, the UK’s Brexit plan and China’s hobbling economic expansion will likely dent global GDP growth, the company said.
“Because of the unfavorable factors, we are unlikely to have an optimistic outlook,” Hotai president Justin Su (蘇純興) told a media briefing in Taipei.
New car sales might drop to about 425,000 units this year, compared with 435,000 units last year, a second year of contraction, Su said.
Bucking the industry’s downtrend, Hotai, which distributes Toyota and Lexus vehicles, aims to increase its sedan sales this year by about 8.47 percent this year to 131,000 units — 110,000 Toyota and 21,000 Lexus vehicles.
The company last year sold 120,766 vehicles.
The company also aims to increase its market share to 30.8 percent, from 27.8 percent last year, Su said.
To stimulate sales, Hotai plans to launch revamps of Toyota RAV4 sports utility vehicle (SUV) and Altis sedan models next month.
The sales growth would also be driven by the new Lexus UX SUV, it said.
Su said he is confident overall that Hotai will see an annual profit growth this year, thanks to expansion in its car rental services and car financing and insurance businesses.
Hotai plans to grow its car rental service by adding the hybrid compact sedan Prius C to its fleet, Su said.
The company also plans to expand its rental services to include electric scooters in collaboration with a local motorcycle maker, he said.
Hotai Finance Co (和潤企業), a car loans and insurance service unit, is set to debut its shares on the main board in the fourth quarter this year.
In the first three quarters of last year, Hotai made NT$7.47 billion (US$242.29 million at the current exchange rate) in net profit, or earnings per share of NT$14.03.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
RSS