PC maker Acer Inc (宏碁) yesterday said that it might turn some of its PC assembly plants in India into laptop manufacturing facilities due to a demand from the Indian government regarding its “Make in India” initiative.
Acer Pan Asia-Pacific regional operations president Andrew Hou (侯知遠) told a media briefing in Taipei that the Indian government has said that computer procurement projects up for bidding in 2022 must be made in India.
“Make in India has been an important consideration for the Indian government over the past three months or so, and we are all trying to look for a solution,” Hou said, adding that 60 percent of Acer’s revenue in India comes from government procurement projects.
Photo: CNA
One possibility would be to assist Indian electronics manufacturing service providers in adjusting their production lines to manufacture Acer products, he said.
Acer might also look for assistance from original equipment manufacturers to turn their Acer-brand desktop PC assembly plants in India into laptop plants, he said.
Separately, demand for Acer’s Chromebooks in various Asian countries has grown explosively this year as Acer won large contracts in Indonesia and Japan in the third quarter, the Central News Agency reported, citing Hou.
Other markets such as India and Taiwan also reported robust demand for Chromebooks last quarter, Hou said.
The company’s Chromebook shipments in the Asia-Pacific region grew 575 percent year-on-year last quarter and total shipments in the first three quarters of the year increased by 301 percent, he added.
He expects demand for Chromebooks to slowly grow in the Asia-Pacific as demand from Europe and the US begins to subside in the second half of next year, Hou said.
As Acer’s Asia-Pacific sales benefited from the lifting of COVID-19 lockdowns, third-quarter revenue increased by 15 percent year-on-year, the company said.
Acer’s third-quarter revenue in the Philippines grew 94 percent from a year earlier to US$110 million, surpassing the US$100 million mark for the first time since Acer established its Philippine branch office in 2003.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six