Automotive components maker Hota Industrial Manufacturing Co (和大工業) on Friday held a beam-raising ceremony at its new manufacturing plant in the Chiayi Dapumei Precision Machinery Park (嘉義大埔美精密機械園區).
The new facilities include a smart plant with automated production lines and a dormitory for 300 employees.
BIG INVESTMENTS
Photo: Lin Yi-chang, Taipei Times
Hota is investing NT$4.2 billion (US$140.23 million) in the new plant and aims to start production by the end of next year to supply components for electric vehicles for US and European clients.
The company, which supplies Tesla Inc and BorgWarner Inc, already operates two plants in the same industrial park.
Together with the new plant, Hota has so far invested NT$14 billion in the park, Chinese-language media reported on Friday.
The company has proposed investing an additional NT$8 billion in a fourth plant with eight to 10 production lines and building an industrial museum in the same park, Hota chairman David Shen (沈國榮) said to the Commercial Times.
However, due to COVID-19 lockdowns in Europe, the US and other countries, major automakers have decreased production, so Hota is expecting lower revenue this year, Shen said.
In the first four months of this year, cumulative revenue fell 20.78 percent year-on-year to NT$1.58 billion, company data showed.
However, with reopenings in Europe and the US, major automakers are resuming production and have begun to replenish their inventories, Shen said.
Hota’s business is expected to stabilize and would gradually return to a growth track next month, he added.
The company on Thursday reported a net income of NT$143.7 million in the first quarter, down 25.3 percent year-on-year, with earnings per share of NT$0.56.
POSITIVE OUTLOOK
Due to decreased demand and lower capacity utilization in late March, the company’s gross margin fell to 26.42 percent and operating margin fell to 11.53 percent in the first quarter, compared with 29.22 percent and 15.17 percent in the same period of last year respectively.
Analysts said that Hota’s revenue is expected to grow in the third and fourth quarters, driven by production increases in Tesla’s China-based factories, rebounding orders for electric vehicles from other brands and the recovery of the US auto market.
Hota’s shift to automated production lines might also drive a higher gross margin in the latter half of the year, analysts said.
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS