Amtran Technology Co (瑞軒), which makes TVs for Vizio Inc and Xiaomi Corp (小米), yesterday said that it plans to accelerate its capacity expansion in Vietnam to help clients circumvent heavy tariffs imposed by the US on Chinese goods.
The company started shipping slim-screen TVs to clients from its Vietnamese plant last month as it reallocated some production out of its Chinese manufacturing site in Suzhou, Amtran said.
The first-phase expansion to produce 2 million TVs per year is expected to cost US$39.6 million, Amtran said.
Washington in September raised tariffs on TVs imported from China to 20 percent from 5 percent amid a trade dispute with Beijing.
“To minimize operational risks, we have started a new development plan to build a second plant adjacent to the existing one in Vietnam,” Amtran spokesman Scottie Chiu (邱裕平) said by telephone yesterday.
Amtran expects to complete the second-phase expansion in the third quarter next year, Chiu said.
He did not provide financial details for the new expansion plan as it is still subject to the approval of the company’s board of directors.
As Amtran is ahead of its rivals in reallocating TV manufacturing outside China, the company has an advantage when capturing new orders amid a changing global trade environment, Chiu said.
The company started assembling TVs for Samsung Electronics Co at the end of last year, and it is expecting orders to increase gradually this year and next year.
The Vietnamese plants would also serve as a stepping-stone to ASEAN and EU nations, given their geographic advantages, Chiu said.
Vietnam has signed numerous free-trade agreements with other nations, including one with the EU which is to take effect next year, allowing Vietnamese goods to enjoy preferential tariffs, he said.
Amtran aims to ship 4 million flat-panel TVs this year, up 17.65 percent from 3.4 million last year, he said.
The company has 1,800 employees in China and 1,300 in Vietnam.
In the first three quarters, Amtran’s net profit more than tripled to NT$144.31 million (US$4.78 million), or earnings per share of NT$0.18, from NT$31.41 million in the same period last year.
Revenue grew 13.61 percent year-on-year to NT$11.02 billion in the first three quarters.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS