AUTOMAKERS
Sanyang upbeat on sales
Automobile and motorcycle manufacturer Sanyang Motor Co Ltd (三陽工業) yesterday said that it is upbeat about sales this year and that it would add four Hyundai Motor Co cars to its offerings. Sales could increase 15 percent this year, Sanyang chairman Wu Chin-yuan (吳清源) said. Regarding Taiwan’s highly saturated car and motorcycle market, Wu said that the company would focus on customer service and strive to cut red tape to import the South Korean automaker’s latest models within a year of their global launches. Wu said that he is optimistic about customers’ reception of Hyundai’s newly revised sports utility vehicles.
AVIATION
Starlux hiring pilots
Starlux Airlines (星宇航空) yesterday said that it would hire 30 to 40 pilots who hold Republic of China citizenship. Qualified candidates for captain must have logged 3,500 flight hours and copilot candidates must have 1,000 flight hours. The newly established airline is set to take delivery of its first Airbus A321neo in October and start using A350 widebody aircraft in 2021. The airline said it would recruit foreign pilots at a later date.
TECHNOLOGY
GeneReach sales skyrocket
GeneReach Biotechnology Corp (瑞基海洋), which makes disease detection devices and reagents for pets, livestock and marine animals, yesterday said that sales last month rose 126 percent annually to NT$26.42 million (US$856,485). Sales in the first two months of this year rose 136 percent annually to NT$61.66 million, it said. The company attributed the gain to a surge in demand for pet testing and African swine fever testing in China, while demand has also risen across other neighboring markets.
BANKING
TBB could set payout record
State-run Taiwan Business Bank (TBB, 台灣企銀) could distribute its highest dividend payout in nearly two decades, following a significant increase in earnings last year. The payout could be NT$0.8 to NT$0.95 per share, better than the NT$0.668 it paid a year earlier. Any payout above NT$0.8 would be the highest since 2000, when it paid NT$1.0154 per share, company data showed. The lender last year saw net income rise 58.25 percent annually to NT$9.17 billion and earnings per share were NT$1.19, both record highs.
LOGISTICS
UPS begins U.S. Saturday pickup
United Parcel Service (UPS) yesterday said that Taiwan is on its list of 57 key markets for a newly launched Saturday pickup service for international shipments. The company is targeting imports from the US, which totaled US$28.7 billion in the first 10 months of last year. Expedited transit time from the new service would provide an opportunity for manufacturing production lines to start earlier and retailers to restock faster, UPS Taiwan managing director Sam Hung (洪毅) said.
CAMERA LENSES
Largan ends annual declines
Smartphone lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) yesterday said that sales last month fell 24 percent monthly and rose 14 percent annually to NT$2.53 billion, ending four months of annual declines. Sales in the first two months of this year totaled NT$5.89 billion, up 3 percent from a year earlier. Largan’s high-end 20 megapixel lenses accounted for 20 to 30 percent of sales and those above 10 megapixels made up 50 to 60 percent of sales, while 8 megapixel lenses contributed 10 to 20 percent.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
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